Chapter 25 On writing

When Stuart dropped me at my father’s the next morning the house was empty.  I put my bags in the garage and arranged a breakfast. I never cooked when away and found the process relaxing; brewing fresh coffee, arranging a simple bowel of cereal and a round of toast.  Moving to sit in the dining room I looked from the window, woods at the back, a stone fountain my parents had chosen together.  ‘What now?’ I thought.  I fetched paper and pen and drew up a list of things to do as I alternated between muesli and toast.

Sign onto the dole.

Call Gareth about the job.

Get Thursdays jobs paper.

Start studying.

It was a cycle I’d repeated five times, an extended trip abroad, a crash landing back at home, but this time things seemed easier, a job waiting, a place to live undisturbed. I filled a couple of days pulling together study materials and when jet lag woke me in the mornings I ran. 

I called Gareth on Wednesday.

“Hey buddy, Paul.”

“Hello sunshine, fancy a bit of work, got just the thing.  I’m coming up from London next week, I’ll show you the ropes, if you like it, it’s yours.”

I pressed for details but he wouldn’t give any. 

On Thursday making my way upstairs I felt my knee cap slide out and pop back in.  It reminded me of the injuries that left footballers in agony and I imagined myself lying prostrate, crawling to the phone to make a pathetic call for help.  I diagnosed it was something to do with the change in temperature and made an appointment at my local surgery. 

Arriving early I took a seat in the waiting area and noticed the fish tank I’d cleaned during my spell working at the local aquarium, the year I’d taken my sabbatical from economics and wasted another six months of my life doing another job I’d hated. I could still feel the walk to work, the walk of a condemned man stealing every second to be somewhere else.  Hours of my life whiled away scrubbing algae from fish tanks and bagging fish.  It was the first place which to bring me into contact with Thailand, the owner married to a Thai.  I remembered considering how his son must have felt when his father returned with an order of Koi Carp and a new wife.

 There’d been another guy at the aquarium and I remembered a day when he’d told me how he used to accompany John on his trips.  Told me how they’d spend a couple of weeks visiting the Koi farms and how in the future he planned to buy a house there.  He couldn’t have been making much money, but he told me he’d have a mansion, design it himself with a pool.  It fitted now, retiring to the life of sweetness. I wondered whether he was living his dream, or coming to retirement to realize the dream was all he’d needed.

Seeing my name scrolling across the electronic board I walked to Doctor Green’s office, knocking and entering as an Indian reclined in her leather chair.  She was attractive in the way professional women always are, well dressed, educated, makeup but not too much.

“Good afternoon Mr Adamson.”

I watched as she shuffled my cards and gave me a once over. 

“It says the last time we saw you you were clinically overweight, do we have the right details?”

I felt a wave of pride, “I’ve lost a bit of weight, been Muay Thai boxing in Thailand.”

She looked at me again, I had the impression she was aroused by the idea, local after local passing through complaining of rheumatism and arthritis and then me.

“You must have lost a considerable amount of weight,” she continued. “So, what brings you here today?”

“My knee, funny, I didn’t have any problems in Thailand but it almost gave way on the stairs.”

Leading me to a couch I hopped up and lying back she rolled my jeans to the knee.  It was erotic, the coldness in her hands, the two of us alone.

“Well, I can’t see anything, I’ll book you in with the physiotherapist.” 

She filled out a card and passed it to me.

“Is there anything else?”

I took time considering whether to say anything.

“There’s one more thing, not sure you can help with this, but….. I just can’t settle down.  All my friends are still living around here, working steady jobs, but I just can’t stop moving.”

As the words left my mouth I knew it sounded limp.  I knew what she was going to say, I just needed to hear it again, hear someone else say there’s nothing wrong.

“You know, everyone’s life is different life, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing.  I’m a doctor, I went to college and now I spend days handing out prescriptions.  If you’d like, I can give you details for counselling, but I don’t think you need it.”

“Thanks.”

“Your life sounds pretty interesting, there’s a lot of people who dream about going to the places you’ve been.”

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When I emptied my backpack the next day I picked out my orange notebook and moved to the lounge to scan the pages.  I’d managed to sketch out my entire life, not the details, but the bones were there.  I thought back to my idea about writing a book about fighting, ‘Could I write something now?’ I thought. ‘Something about a girl like Nen and an ex-pat living in Bangkok.  Combine everything I’ve experienced and all the questions I’ve tried to answer’.

I opened my laptop and began.  

‘He walked to the window, gazing out as the sun rose over the Chao Phaya River.  Turning back he looked at the girl in his bed, the dark silhouette lying silently, he crossed the room to join her, stroking hair from her face as she stirred and bending to place a kiss on her brow.’

I stopped, ‘What’s the story? What’s the message?’ I couldn’t think of one.  It seemed pointless writing without a clear idea.  I’d be writing some crappy Mills & Boon that just happened to be set in Bangkok.  The type of story I’d see people reading on the train, gripping enough to pass the time, shallow enough it wouldn’t turn a single cog in the reader’s head, that wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted to write the type of book I loved, the type which would make me pause to re-read a line, to think about what the author said and realize he’d changed the way they’d look at the world forever. 

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Going for my job at the weekend I arrived on a quiet street, fishing the address from my pocket and marching until I found the building.  Entering via a buzzer I climbed the stairs and heard dance music as I approached the fourth flight.  I paused, ‘Can I do this,’ I thought ‘A job plucked from the sky, what about doing something ethical’. I knew once I started I’d feel obligated to stay, what if it sucked.  ‘No, I have to’ I told myself.  Money running low the job made sense, a few months of good cash, a job with kept my connection to Asia via Gareth.  I met an attractive receptionist dressed in black and white.  It was what I heard girls describe as accessorised; a black cardigan over a black and white bodice, black skirt leading to black and white stockings, black and white beaded necklace with beads growing larger as they descended to her chest. 

“Hi, Paul, I’m here to see Gareth.”

“He’s with someone at the moment, take a seat, I’ll call you when he’s free.”

Moving through an upmarket salon I entered a lounge filled with bulky red sofas, taking a seat as a pop video played on a flat screen T.V..  I thumbed through a portfolio of girls and looked up as a familiar face passed with eyebrows raised.

 

“Follow me sunshine,” he said after depositing a couple of customers at reception.

Entering a white office I looked around; curving desk, computer, vase of flowers brightening a dull grey cabinet.

“Long time no see fella,” he began.

We briefly discussed what we’d been doing and I commented on how different he looked with hair in place of his shaved scalp.   

“So, the job, piece of piss mate.”

He inserted a memory card and tapped the keyboard until a series of images filled the screen.

“This my friend, is your office, that girl just had her photos taken,” he continued pointing at the screen. “Your job simple, you go through the photos, tell her she looks beautiful, when you’ve got down to what she wants, quote the price, job done.”

I was seeing his other world now, the one I’d tried to picture on our visa runs to Burma. ‘I work in a modelling studio,’ ‘Spend my winters somewhere warm, summers watching the cricket’.

He pointed to a list on the wall, prices ranging from excessive to outrageous.

“People pay that for photos?”

“Vanity mate.”

I told him I’d never used Photoshop and he told me that wasn’t a problem.

“I’ll show you a couple of tricks today; you can pick the rest up as you go.”

He gave me a syrupy feeling as he told me I wouldn’t need an interview.  It was as if I was somehow insulated from the outside world.  Like boxing had made me part a secret organisation which helped its members in any way it could. It took me back to something my father had said, ‘You make your own luck in this world,’ and it was true.  Had I not kept searching, not been desperate enough to go to Thailand and make my plan for The Legion I’d never even have imagined a life like Gareth’s.  His manner had been the same in Thailand, moving with confidence, setting those around him at ease.  He seemed to have gradually chipped away until he’d created a life of simple pleasures, when he got bored he set himself a challenge, seeing if he could date a girl, an occasional game of poker, but always within limits. 

He’d been a bit economical with the truth describing the role as a graphics artist, it was sales pure and simple; give a girl a makeover, get her tipsy on Buck’s Fizz, sit her in a room with a handsome salesman generous on compliments.  It was a production line; hair, makeup, photos and then me, the money taker. It probably bordered on illegality with the alcohol but that was our world and right now I needed the money. 

I watched one of Gareth’s sales, three girls, none particularly special in appearance.

“Look at that,” he said. “That’s your Audrey Hepburn shot.”

He took them for every penny, running their credit cards through the machine until they were empty.  Before I wouldn’t have considered a job like that, but if I was going to be a prostitute for a while, it made sense to a well paid one.  He gave me the next client and I took a hundred pounds. 

It was summer in England, the end of June and without a car I walked to the station, practising Chinese on the train. I was in my own world then, back in my Chinese apartment looking down as the elderly cackled over games of majong, shopping in the markets, chatting up the baseball capped prostitute in the nightclub.  Gareth staying a couple more days he continued to show me the ropes and I made some decent money.  Gradually working out a pitch, I used techniques I’d picked up charity fundraising to meet objections and played on my looks.  I felt like a Jedi Knight who’d turned to the dark side.  Most of the girls knew what it was about, and if they didn’t, they did by the time they left.  It was the universe at work, right now I was selling vanity, perhaps in the future I’d be building more wells in Africa. 

Paid on commission I worked out my ten percent would net me a couple of hundred pounds a day.  It was the most I’d ever made and I began considering what I’d do with it, ‘Buy that condo in Hillside 4?’ I thought. 

----------------------------------------------------

On Monday, told I wouldn’t be working until the following weekend I used my free time to formalise my plans.  Working four days a week I reckoned on saving a thousand a month.  Eight thousand banked by December I’d resurrect my degree, get my books and get back to Thailand.  My university offering exams at any British Council around the world things finally seemed to be falling into place.  I thought back to the book I’d read about how when you set out after something forces conspired get you there.  It seemed right, but perhaps more could have been said about the bendy path, the fact that for all we plan the road that finally takes us is more winding than we could ever have imagined. 

My future would lie somehow in Asia.  I’d felt it my first time in China, a place where I was supposed to be, perhaps my role to connect East and West.  I envied the explorers who’d gone to places for the first time, but in a sense, the modern world was more exciting, the rise of the Asia tipping the global balance at an unprecedented pace, I could explain it, tell people why their jobs were drifting overseas. 

“Well, you get paid £20,000 a year, right?” I’d say.  “There’s a guy in a place called Guangzhou, China who went to university too, in fact, he’s got a doctorate versus your bachelors.  His parents used to earn £1000 a year and now he’s been offered your job on £4000, he’s taken it.”

“But, I’ve been with the company five years.”

“You want loyalty? I’m sure your boss is a reasonable guy but what are companies designed to do? Maximize profit of preserve job stability? Growth and profit every time, read any textbook, the bigger the takings the more successful the company.  They give your job to the guy in Guangzhou and they just reclaimed £16,000 a year.”

“So what do I do now?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you this, the worlds moving towards a kind of perfection.”

“Eh.”

“An evolutionary perfection, you know evolution, cave man to modern man?  Well, it’s the same with your job, we had an idea that happiness would spring from material wealth so we got busy creating this global economy.  You got your house your car, now it’s the turn of the guy in Guangzhou to get his, any good with your hands?”

“I like gardening.”

“Perfect, a bit of sustainability, have a go at gardening, we’ll always need gardeners.”

“You see, it’s just a philosophical fix you need, you just have to see things as they are.  Once we’ve got through getting everyone their material happiness we’re going to sit back and enjoy it.”

“Does that mean I can go fishing?”

“Why not, eventually we’ll get a machine doing your old job so you can travel to Guangzhou and go fishing with the guy who just took your job.”

“So, who’s in charge, I mean, who’s going to make all the decisions once all this technology’s running things.”

“You know, I might just have been whistling in the wind here, we’ll probably keep ourselves busy for another thousand years with new things to be busy about.”

My work never starting until midday I had time to get back into my studies in the mornings and plenty besides, and considering the besides my diaries returned to my thoughts.  ‘I could write them up,’ I thought, ‘a period of consolidation, a record of my exploring’.

“Those belonged to your great, great grandfather,” they’d say. “You’ve heard about him?”

“He travelled all over the world, dad told me he married a Japanese woman.”

“That’s right, he was a remarkable man.  He wrote books and gave lectures.”

“Dad said he was a businessman.”

“He was, and a very successful one too, he became famous for Fair Trade.  Do you know what Fair Trade is?”

“No.”

“It was an idea to pay a fair price for goods in the developing world so children could afford to go to school.”

“Where’s the developing world?”

“Well, it used to be that countries like China and India were very poor, we called them developing while they working to become a country like England.”

“But, aren’t they the richest countries in the world?”

“They are now.”

“Dad said he was a playboy, what’s a playboy?”

“I think you’re too young to know what a playboy is, but when he was younger he liked to have fun.  He wanted to experience everything life could offer, I think he did.”

On Tuesday I ate a lunch of sandwiches and moved to the garage rummaging through my box.  My clothes aside, it contained everything I owned; the books I’d read, my photographs, ornaments I’d picked up or been given along the way and near the bottom I found my diaries.  Half a dozen, each dated on the front, my first trip around the world, India, teaching in China, Thailand.  Moving to the lounge I sat on the Lazy Boy and placed them on the armrest.  It was the first time I’d opened them in four years and I began at the beginning.  I was back in Beijing, feeling the heat of the day, re-joining the conversations I’d left.

When I’d finished reading I began typing up my first trip, I typed for five hours and continued every day for the next three weeks.  The routine never changed, beginning after breakfast, taking a short time to settle and once I started I was lost in my memories.  I re-read and edited for another few weeks before printing.  It was interesting, maybe only for me, but I felt I’d captured my experience; the feeling of freedom when I’d left my office job, touching down in Beijing, evening voices in the hutong.  I gave it to my grandfather hoping somehow they’d be understand me better, see where my desire to explore came from, what I did with my time.

Sitting in Starbucks the following week I considered what I was doing, ‘Am I writing?’  I thought.  From what I’d read there seemed to be two kinds of books.  Fictional entertainers people passed the time with and the type I read, stories which softened the delivery of ideas, books with messages and answers; non-fiction, philosophy, self-help. Occasionally I enjoyed a novel too but only when I had the sense it was based on true experiences.  It seemed that even if you wrote fiction you had to have experienced what you wrote on some level.  The author of the Life of Pi couldn’t have written as he did without investigating the religions, without his study of philosophy and the three toed sloth.  In his mind’s eye he’d been on a lifeboat with a Tiger named Richard Parker. 

I thought about what I’d valued in them, it was the useful things, the questions they’d answered, a connection when someone who’d experienced something I’d felt, books had given me companionship.  When people wrote for money they were another sort of prostitutes, but those who wrote for themselves reached out to the things they cherished, things that didn’t have to be marketable, just human.  Things the writer had to share before they burst like a dam inside him, plumbing the fringes of life and each time returning to make the world a little clearer.

It wasn’t like speaking; it was reflective, taking time to consider what was most important and the best way to say it.  How did you write? What turned a person into a writer? I’d travelled with Will McEwan in China.

“My father’s a writer,” he’d said. “You might have heard of him, Ian McEwan.”

“No, haven’t heard of him.”

“He won The Booker Prize.”

“Oh,” I had heard of that.

He’d told me his father was a virtual recluse, locking himself away for hours on end.  So what made an Ian McEwan? Visiting a bookshop the next day I found myself in the writing section, a small yellow title catching my eye, ‘How to be a Writer,’ it read down the spine.  Four inches tall I thumbed to the contents, the writers schedule, how to write a novel, what it was like to be a full time writer.  I paid and moved to Starbucks.  It was my sanctuary, my lounge from the time I bought my coffee till the moment I left.  It was quiet at home but there was something about being around other people.  I opened the book and flicked through, stopping at the daily routine. 

8.30 a.m. Get up

9.00 a.m. Go jogging

10.00 a.m. Breakfast

11.00 a.m. Write

1.00 p.m. Lunch

2.00 p.m. Edit what you wrote in the morning.

4.00 p.m. Do whatever you’ve got to do. 

‘That’s the dream,’ it said.  Then it went into the reality, the success pyramid, not many people making it, how it was tough, how you shouldn’t give up your day job.  It talked about the keys to making it when you were starting out; write rubbish, write every day, just keep writing.  When it described the process it talked of sculpting, chipping away until you created what you were looking for.  It seemed to mirror the process I’d performed with my life.  My exploring, my questions, my reading, people who did those things were writers.  I remembered back to the self help book I’d read, ‘For those of you who can’t settle on a career you might want to consider becoming a writer’.  My whole journey seemed to have led me down the path, I’d chased truth, followed my instincts and writing was the crystallization.   

It would be my religion, my daily practice, my writing muscles becoming gradually stronger through constant repetition.  I had a momentary lapse considering how it would have been better if I’d decided to write at eight rather than twenty eight but writing wasn’t like that.  I sensed it was something you started after living, something which crept up on you when you were ready.  I thought back to one of the last conversations with Suzy.

“I’ll come to London with you,” I’d said. “Get a job, any job, at least we can be together.”

“But you don’t even know what you want to do,” she’d replied.   

I sat back and sipped my coffee looking down at the shoppers.  I’d found a role which gave me a licence to explore.  No compromise, no commitment to another’s ideas, a place where I could connect with all that lay within reason and all which lay outside.  Where philosophy became too inhuman, where practical life became too mundane, it was the bridge.  When people asked what I did I’d say, ‘I’m a writer’, even if I wasn’t paid, even if no one read it, ‘I’m a writer’.

Chapter 24 Nen

Following Nen to Sawasdee that morning I found her with cigarette and coffee, a red love bite where I’d returned her attack the night before.  Smiling and walking past I bought the Bangkok Post from 7/11 and returned for a lazy breakfast.  My mind still sizzled I realized I had to get it together.  If I was going to make it out of Bangkok, to plan my next move I had to clear my head. 

Waiting until my body corrected itself in the early afternoon I collected my notebook and began to think.  I didn’t have much money left, but enough to get set up wherever I decided to go.  So my options, I needed an income, and in Asia the only way I knew to get that was teaching; China? Korea? Bangkok?   My lingering hunger for China was tempered by the fact I’d already done it, Korea by the fact I’d be an illegal, but perhaps Bangkok.  I’d read an American professor describe the city as somewhere where something different happened every day.  That was what I wanted, a place constantly evolving, free from the straightjacket of rules and regulations.  If I hung around long enough I might get to write something for The Post.  But there was my lack of credentials, I’d never written anything, I had no degree, all I had was a vague notion I wanted to write something. 

The other option was England; that was the sensible choice, go home, live with the family for a while, save some money, but how many times could I do that?  I’d return with memories fresh in my head, feel relaxed and then I’d be struck by reality.  I was nothing in England, a C.V. full of holes, my family’s patience wearing thinner every return. ‘I hope your going to settle this time,’ my grandmother would say, ‘perhaps you’ve finally got that wanderlust out of your system’.  They didn’t have a clue, I wasn’t wandering, I was working, seeking answers, getting on with the important work. My degree was something I knew I had to get to the end of, put the foundations of philosophy beneath me and see where it went.  My family wanted to rush me, scolding when I told them it might take four years instead of three, ‘You’ll be thirty by then,’ they’d tell me.  Thirty with nothing behind you is what they’d meant.    

Nen wandered to my table and asked about my plans for the night. 

“You come to my apartment?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Spending the afternoon reading Cameron’s short story I jogged the circuit from the previous day and met her at six.  Walking to the river with another girl from the restaurant and crossing by ferry it was a pleasant feeling, a breeze rippling across the deck, the madness of the city temporarily left behind.  The bus on the other side seemed to take forever to wind its way through rush-hour.  Arriving we walked a couple of lanes to an apartment set back from the road.

“Expensive?” I asked.

“Four thousand baht a month, but four girl share, so not expensive.”

Inside it was a single room identical to the shy girls in Chiang Mai; double bed, T.V., a couple of wardrobes stuffed with clothes, balcony adorned with drying rack and cooking utensils.

“Where do you sleep?” I asked.

“Floor, it’s O.K.”

Sitting on the bed the other girl took out a book and Nen turned on the T.V.. 

“What you reading?” I asked.

She turned to Nen for a translation.

“She study English.”

“Oh, go to school?”

“Yes,” she replied timidly.

She was studying around her job, a girl on an upward path while Nen’s only seemed to lead to down.  The quiet girl was a nice girl but not the type of girl I could ever be with.  Nen was my type, wild and crazy, someone I could latch with.  Changing into Khaki mini-skirt complimented by a matching top she twirled in front of me.

“O.K.?”

I nodded my approval.

“We go now,” she said.

“Go where?”

“Khao San.”

That evening we returned to the Khao San Centre.

“Nen, I can’t drink all night,” I said as we sat with our first drinks at 7.00.

“No problem, my friends from Sweden come.”

Leaving me to join them I spent my night wandering the streets, chatting to Jim who wanted to use me in T.V. commercials. 

“You meet me tomorrow, I take you to see agency,” he propositioned.

I listened to him for another half an hour and as he’d finished a foreigner stopped to continue the conversation. 

“If you want to work in Bangkok you can teach English,” he said.

He told me he’d been a builder back in England, had had enough and sold up.  Ragged in appearance he had lines running through his face, he was walking a bulldog which lived up to the idea canines share looks with their owners.  In his early forties I reckoned beer and women had aged him quickly.  People lost there purpose in Bangkok, found it again in a bottle of whiskey and the stub of a cigarette.  Strolling back to my guesthouse I spotted Nen, whiskey open, shrieks of laughter rising from the table she shared with her Swedish friends, I passed without stopping.    

At breakfast the next morning she came straight to my table.

“What you do last night?” she interrogated.

“Sleeping, you have a good time?”

“Yes, make party for my friend, so drunk.”

As I ate breakfast I noticed French Pierre sitting with a Thai girl, leaning over as he spotted me.

“How are you?”

“Good, you?” He rubbed a hand against his face, heavy bags sagging beneath his puffy eyes.

“O.K., I go to Patpong like you say, take two girls home,” I nodded. “Shit man, fucking shit, they come, only stay two hours, all the time looking at their watches, six thousand baht.”

“Who’s the new girl?”

“I met her yesterday, can’t speak fucking English.”

Spending the rest of the day mulling over my options I arranged to take Nen to the cinema and watched the rugby with Alex.  His friend playing in the opening test he screamed his name as we drank our Chang’s.  The Lions were feeble, losing as the kiwis in the bar roared approval.  We moved to table near the street.

“Not great,” I said.

“Didn’t flow at all.”

A lone Ozzie chatting to us from a neighbouring table he told us he’d been in Bangkok for eight years. 

“Just got out,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“Out of prison.”

He looked like another weather beaten soul, teaching to keep himself afloat.  He’d been inside two months for walking down Khao San with a friend smoking a joint; smoking by association they called it.  Excusing himself he reached down picking up a pair of crutches.  He only had one leg.  It seemed to symbolize all the foreigners living in the city, something missing, they’d come in search of something better, an easier life but it didn’t seem to work out like that.

Alex leaving to visit the bank I sat alone picking at the label on my beer bottle. Before I’d always dived in and out of Khao San but now I was observing.  Using my time like a journalist to work out how the foreigners reconciled their days of drinking.  I didn’t know how they did it; day after day, it was like Muay Thai, all consuming but in place of fitness came inebriation.  Walking back to Sawasdee I checked a travel agent for flights and was surprised to find England the cheapest destination. 

I went to meet Nen.

“We can leave in half an hour take taxi, bus too busy now,” Nen said as I returned to my guesthouse.  It took an age to wind across the city, my eyes drawn to the meter as the red numbers gradually grew larger.  Always knowing exactly how much credit I had it was painful to watch it tick away.  Eighty baht later we arrived opposite a huge mall, crossing via a foot bridge and entering an arcade of restaurants and shops.  We rode an escalator to the top floor, posters for Mr & Mrs Smith looming from the walls.

“Ah, we see this movie, I like these actors,” Nen said pulling on her jumper.

“Aren’t you hot?”

“Not want people to think I bad girl, if they see tattoo, no good.”

The title of the film seemed appropriate for our relationship, two strangers spending the week like a wedded couple.  The film itself was trash, a generous budget, two pretty actors, explosions, but it was good, sat chomping popcorn and sipping my Pepsi, holding hands, it was fun.  Not that I’d want to do every day but it was something I hadn’t done for a long time and I enjoyed it. 

Returning to Khao San I’d moved to a new guesthouse providing T.V., en-suite, window and a pool.  I lay on the bed and waited as Nen fixed her hair and climbed on top of me.  Removing my penis, she playfully sucked until I was hard and I put a condom on, pulling up her skirt.  She wasn’t taught thin, somewhere in-between, enough extra flesh to give her a shapely pair of breasts.  Sinking my head between them I moved to her neck and stopped at the love bite.

“No, no, everybody can see,” she said as I attended the mark.

Grabbing her rear I squeezed it tightly and eased inside.  I hated condoms, but I didn’t have a choice, and like the magazine without the nipples, she was sexy enough to come in spite of it. 

Moving up and down, I came first and continued until she shrieked and collapsed.   

“How long you stay?” she said taking a cigarette.

“Maybe a week.”

“Here have swimming pool, tomorrow can go?”

“You have time?”

“I not go to work tomorrow.”

Popping downstairs to collect fruit shakes we spent the night watching T.V. and woke late.

“I better go work,” she said.

Showering and collecting her clothes she left.  The room seemed empty without her.  It was something that hit me every time I slept with a girl now, loneliness temporarily removed and then exacerbated once they’d left.  It was the price you paid for non attachment, never knowing how long it would be before you got to hold someone again. For a while I turned on the T.V. but it was useless.  Getting up I looked in the mirror, I still had my physique but how long would it I last in Bangkok?  The delicate lines gradually fading amongst overeating and caloried drinks, I had to make a plan.

Brunching on pancakes the next morning Pierre was with another new girl, maybe in her mid twenties, a delicate paisley dress revealing a long pair of shapely legs.

“Hey man, I didn’t see you there, I found the girl, this girl speaks English,” he said smiling.

“What happened to the other one?”

“Ah, I don’t know, anyway this one’s taking me to Ayuthaya, you know Ayuthaya?  Some kind of ancient city,” Sweat running down his face I reckoned he’d been pissed for four days straight. 

“This is Cha,” he introduced.

“Helloa.”

As her greeting reached my ears I heard it, the deep voice, Adam’s apple, she was a stunningly attractive ladyboy.

“Hey man, have to go now, we have to get there in daylight,” Pierre said shaking my hand and heading to the street.

Nen approached my table pointing after them, “Ladyboy, he know it ladyboy?”

I shook my head, watching as his grey rental car snaked down the lane. 

Easing back until afternoon I was joined by Alex.  He told me he had a flight arranged for later that week but for now he was stuck.  Moving to talk about his travel plans he told me he was on his way to Australia.

“I’ve wanted to go travelling for ages, could never get the money together until my brother offered me a room in his house.  To be honest, I’d been getting a bit depressed.”

“What were you doing?”

“Removals, pretty good actually, my old man knew the gaffer, Removals of Chelsea.  I moved Noel Gallagher.  They had this room with all this kinky sex stuff, you know, those sex swings?  Before that I had an office job in Hemel Hempstead, kind of systems support, not very interesting so when the removals came up I took it.”

“Well, I bet you’re glad you’re out here.”

I could tell he was, beer in hand, icy beads running down its neck.  He was first time out, scratching the itch, but I could see the danger signs.  He was planning to spend all his money, eight thousand pounds and then go back.  For some it was easy, dust off the suit, return to the office but for those dissatisfied, things were different.  Some got lost forever, picking up work to keep them abroad; others went back for a time and found they couldn’t cope, seesawing from one side of the world to the other.  And then there was me, the disciplined traveller, or at least I liked to think so.  Never letting my money get too low, never staying in a place when I thought I’d be better somewhere else.  ‘What are you going to do?’ I questioned myself again.

That evening Nen dragged me back to the Khao San Centre where we met two Scandinavian girls she knew from Pi Pi.

“Nen I can’t drink,” I said for a second night.

“Just a bit longer honey, I take you play pool,” she pleaded.

The girls leaving for the airport we moved to a bar, the pool table occupied we ordered a couple of cocktails and I dragged her to the floor for a slow dance.  Back in my room by eleven I knew I had to leave, every night with Nen would be alcoholic, and every extra day without a flight meant another day in Bangkok.  The next morning I didn’t tell her my intention, just bought the ticket and returned for breakfast joined by the French girls who told me how much they were enjoying Bangkok

“What else should we see?” They asked.

I took them on a tour, helped them negotiate with their shopping and returned to the guesthouse to draw up an itinerary for Chiangmai.  I didn’t like offer too much advice, just gave them a few sites and the address of my boxing camp. 

The dark haired of the two sat looking at me, “I think you are,” she made a soft whistling sound with her lips and placed her hands in front of her moving them apart. “Very calm, I not see many people like you,” she said.

It was exactly the persona I tried to put out, the calm demeanour of someone who knew exactly what they were doing, only I didn’t, I didn’t have a fucking clue.  If only she could have seen the turmoil inside the head, all the loose connections.

Back in my room that evening I told Nen I’d booked the ticket.  She was O.K. but in the back of my mind I was still asking myself the question, ‘Do I really want to go?’

“Is it easy to find a teaching job in Bangkok?” I asked her as she sat on the bed.

“Very easy, I have foreigner friend who can help you.”

“How about apartments? I don’t want to live around Khao San, is there anywhere quieter? Somewhere near Sukhumvit?”

“Before I live with English boyfriend have very nice place, near centre, not too expensive.”

I started imagining myself living with her.  It would be like my time with Suzy, thrown together, her helping me, me helping her.  I felt I wanted to, just for a while to enter her world and lift her to somewhere safe.  We’d rent a simple apartment, buy all the necessities you needed to start a life together; ironing board, bedding, T.V..  I’d encourage her to get a job in a better class of restaurant and I’d teach and study philosophy.  We’d spend evenings at home and visit the bars in Sukhumvit after work, occasionally go to Khao San.  My life again in some kind of balance, a partner who’d need me and when she didn’t, I’d let her fly.

I lived a split life for the next few days, half the time imagining life in Bangkok, the other thinking about home.  I had an e-mail to say my father to say he’d bought a new house and the old was lying empty.  That meant a job from Gareth and a place to stay rent free. 

The morning of my departure Nen and I went to a park by the river.  Sitting on the grass, I watched people as they lay talking and wondered how I could leave it all.  The easy life in exchange for home, I knew I’d need work if I stayed, but there was still so much to recommend it; the weather, excitement, picking up the language. 

“I lose my job,” Nen started.

“They sacked you?”

“I go this morning and they tell me not to come back.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed her.

“This friend of yours, you really think he could find me a job?”

“I call him now, no problem.”

Before I could reply she had the phone to her ear. 

“Hi Nen…Nen, I want ask your help.  My friend English want to teach, can meet you today?”

Listening to the reply she thanked him and hung up.

“Say he can come to Khao San tonight, finding job no problem, I already tell you.”

Leaning forward she rested her head on my chest.

“Please stay, please…”

It was crazy, I’d known her a less than a week and we were talking about setting up home together, but that wasn’t real the problem, the problem was the future.  I wanted to live in Bangkok but I wanted to do it in style.  I wanted money, opportunities to explore, to write for The Bangkok Post.  It was stick or twist again, try and make a go of it with what I had or go home and collect reinforcements; get my degree, save some money, maybe buy the house to rent out in England.  I reckoned I’d need at least my degree to write for The Post and that made being at home for a while make sense; settle down, pay my fees, get the books I’d need. 

I was starting to form a vision of the type of life I wanted, it was definitely international but I wanted to operate at a higher level.  I’d seen what happened to people who taught English.  I’d met one at my Buddhist centre in Birmingham, forty eight he’d returned from Rome with nothing.

“Houses are so expensive,” he’d complained.

The American I’d met on my first day in China had been the same, living a hand to mouth existence, enough money to cover costs but nothing to put aside.  He’d been considering buying a new belt that day, only a couple of dollars, but he’d had to think about it.  No, I was going to operate on a higher level, some sort of correspondent, entrepreneur, something freelance but something that paid. 

“I have to go now,” I said standing.

“No, please stay, can do everything no problem.”

Reluctantly joining me we walked to my hotel and I collected my bags arguing with the receptionist as she refused to return my deposit.

“You not have receipt?”

“You know I paid, if I didn’t pay you wouldn’t have given me the room.”

Storming out I was shaking, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so angry.  We hailed a taxi and climbed inside.

“You tell me about quiet place where I can live, can you ask the driver to take us past,” I said.

“You stay, yes, you stay?” Nen replied excitedly.

“Just ask.”

As we moved through the city she gripped my hand.  I didn’t want to leave her, she needed someone but it couldn’t be me.  Passing through the area she pointed from the window.

“Here, see?”

It was pretty, the colonial buildings I’d envisaged, wider boulevards than I’d not seen elsewhere in the city but it wasn’t enough.  Reaching the airport I smoked a cigarette and walked to the ATM. 

“For you, need money if you not have job,” I said handing her a few thousand baht.  It wasn’t payment, just someone who had money giving it to someone who didn’t. 

Approaching check in I dropped my bag and took her in my arms. 

“Don’t forget me,” she said tightening her grip.  It seemed so unfair how life left so many people lonely.  So many people who just wanted to hold someone, but somehow it all became so complicated.

“I have to go.”

She pushed a piece of paper into my hand.

“Don’t read now,” she said.

Passing my bags through the x-ray machine I looked up as she disappeared through the crowd.  Leaving Nen behind, leaving Bangkok, was it the smart move?  If I stayed perhaps things would open up, opportunities I hadn’t seen yet, the kind you had to wait for.  Held up at customs for overstaying my visa I paid the fine and passed to departures eating KFC to ease my mood.  I took out the piece of paper.

‘Don’t forget me, love Nen XXX.’ 

Finishing my food I found myself walking towards information ‘Why don’t you stay? One more roll of the dice’.  I couldn’t, too late, I had to go.  Turning I headed towards my gate.  ‘No, fuck it, I’m staying’.  Turning again I headed for information.

“Hi, I’m supposed to be flying to London but I need to stay, can I get my bags off.”

“You have to ask at your gate.”

I hurried down the tunnel, repeating my predicament and adding the idea I was meeting a friend in Bangkok.

“You cannot get refund on ticket, you know this?” the girl said.

I stood for a moment as my mind whirred.

“No problem, I’ll take the flight.”

On the plane I stowed my luggage and sat rapping my fingers on the armrest.  My whole body was jumping, I didn’t want to go.  I knew what was going to happen, nothing would have changed at home, two weeks from now I’d feel like I’d never been away.  I remembered something I’d read ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results.’  That was it, trapped in a cycle, living in England until desperation drove me abroad, returning once anxiety over the future became too much.  I felt like a terrorist, the whole plane watching me to see what I’d do next.  I stood and removed my carry-on bag marching back towards the entrance. 

“Is there a problem sir?” a cabin girl asked as she stood in my path.

“Can I still get off, I have to meet a friend in Bangkok.”

“Sorry sir, we’re cleared for departure.”

The flight passed in a blur, my mind empty, watching film after film until I found myself unclipping my belt and looking out at Heathrow.  Riding the tube to London I thought about Gareth, about my brief spell in the city.  I hadn’t really known it before but I’d come to see it as a place you had to be born or have a good reason for being now.  Anyone else would be swept away; it wasn’t the place for me.  Making two changes I arrived at Marylebone and took the train to Solihull calling Stuart from the station.

“Hey buddy, how are you?”

“Adzie man, haven’t heard from you for a while.”

“Any chance of a lift?”

“Where are you?”

“Solihull station,” I heard him chuckle.

“When’d you get back?”

“A few hours ago.”

Taking me to his place I spent the night filling him in on what had happened and my still un-made plans.