On Monday the prospect of my evening date got me
out of bed and after ploughing through two successful training sessions I sat
with Mali outside her chalet.
“Look good now,” she said, “when you come you fat, but
now look good. See you train today,
strong, think you good.”
“I don’t know about good, but yeah,
not as fat as I used to be.”
I took my stomach in my hand, pleased to see there
was no longer more than a pinch. It was impossible
not to lose weight in the regime, running stripping away the flesh, kicking and
numberless sit ups tightening the torso.
“How long you stay?” she asked.
“Maybe another month, maybe two.”
“I think you like Thailand,
not go back England.”
“Yeah, I like Thailand, but have to go back to work.
How about you? Stay at Lanna forever?”
“Ha, maybe stay forever, good life, do massage,
help boxer fix problem. Before I always
want to go here, do this, do that, but now I happy to be quiet.”
“Those pictures in your room, your children?”
“Have boy and girl,” she said pausing to think,
“twenty five and eighteen.”
“You ever see them?”
“Last time I see four year ago, now they stay with
my ex-husband in England.”
“You lived in England before?”
“Yes, while the children young. Have good life, cook Thai food, pick them up
from school but when they grow up I come back to Chiang Mai. My husband come too, but no good, go out
every night get drunk. One night come
back and want to fighting with me. Me
and my sister locked in room, and he on the other side, boom, boom, boom. I think he going to kill me. That’s when I know I have to leave. For a while he work in Singapore and I go to
see the children but he have new girlfriend and she not want me see. Now best to stay away, my daughter maybe
visit next year.”
I absorbed what I’d heard, her whole life patted
down in a few short sentences. It seemed
many Thai girls had tried the life abroad, but something always brought them
back. ‘Relationships built on sand’ is
what I thought. People who met at work and
chatted by the coffee machine had a chance but those who met on a drunken night
in Thailand would probably end in not dissimilar circumstances.
“Now I happy with my life, do what you love, love
what you do, tomorrow never know.”
“What, what was that?” I said scrambling for pen
and paper.
“’Do what you love, love what you do, tomorrow
never know.”
It almost sounded like what I was chasing, the
synergy between life and work, blended together until you couldn’t tell the difference. The only bit I wasn’t sure about was
‘tomorrow never know’. Until I’d made my
decision to leave my old life I’d never really thought about the future, but
for the last four years it was all I’d thought about, how to make my life
meaningful, how to find a job where I felt I was doing something worthwhile.
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
That evening I dressed for my date and rode to the
night bizarre parking opposite McDonald’s.
Slightly early I browsed the stores, moving through tourists as they
haggled over trinkets and t-shirts. I didn’t
buy anything myself, I only bought what I needed, a strategy which allowed me to
spend in a month what a tourist would spend in a week. I wouldn’t have a Buddha statue to take home
but I had my time. I’d forfeited the
accumulation of things, drawn a line at the point where l had enough. As I strolled back I found her waiting beneath
the big M. An evening breeze rippling
her flowery dress, she was pretty rather than sexy tonight.
“I come early, go shopping,” she said.
“Me too.”
I took her hand and led her across the road.
“Where we go?”
“Surprise.”
I’d picked a restaurant by the river, my Good Food
Guide listing it as somewhere more upmarket serving traditional Thai dishes. Crossing the river and gliding along the bank
she held her arms around me.
“I think I know this place,” she said.
Parking outside we made our way to a lantern lit
table, I’d decided tonight would be a special, that whatever I spent would well
spent. It was something more valuable
than the things I’d passed in the market, time with someone who had stories, a
pretty face who I could admire between my sips of whiskey.
“What you like?” she asked as she ordered.
I picked out a single dish of cooked pork and added
a bottle of Sangsom.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Quiet, stay apartment Nen.”
“Nen going out tonight?”
“I not think so, have to work, how about you?”
“Boxing today, feel tired.”
Whiskey arriving the waiter poured two sizable
measures and I lent back lighting a cigarette.
“So, how long you stay in Chiang Mai?” I asked.
“Up to me.”
“I thought you said this was a holiday.”
“Yes, but can work here too.”
“What do you do?”
“I work in jewellery business, when foreigner come
I take them to place where they can buy.”
“So, you don’t have to go to an office?”
“Have in Bangkok,
but only go sometime.”
“So, how long’s this holiday?”
“One week, one month, up to me, not work every day,
one month only eight, nine day.”
As the food arrived I took some time to unravel
what I’d heard. Works eight, nine days a
month as a market maker in the jewellery business, she must have been making
decent money only working those hours, but another thought was lingering, was
she a hooker? Not your everyday sort, a girl who could name her price and
choose her clients. That would make more
sense, making appointments via phone, taking seven thousand baht a night.
“You hungry?” I asked as the tabletop disappeared
under a succession of plates.
“Good to have choice,” she replied.
She was right, but when I wanted a choice I went to
the market.
“Your job pay well?”
“Every day can make ten thousand baht.”
That was exceptional by Thai standards, most people
made less in a month, with her looks I was sure she could have been making it
but not in the way she was telling me.
“That’s pretty good.”
She looked at me without answering.
“So, what do you do with your free time?”
“Stay in apartment in Sukhumvit, watch porno, go
shopping, but I get bored, that why I come Chiang Mai.”
“Watch porno?”
“Like to watch Western man, have big dick,” she said
opening her hands to a distance I could never hope to bridge.
“Not always like this for me, before I have my own
jewellery business in Siam Square, sell piercing. At first very hard, rent shop, no customer but
later my friend help me find foreign customer.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Have to spend too much time. Israeli man ask me to work for him, so I sell
shop and now like this.”
I couldn’t get a handle on what she was telling me,
how she made it all seem so easy. At just twenty one she’d ordered her life in
a way most people couldn’t in a lifetime. Put work in its place, taken back her time, I
was envious. When I travelled I enjoyed
a total freedom but it was only ever temporary.
She’d done it at home, created a life in where she was in control. It was like Buddhists Samsara for me, the
wheel of suffering, going home to make money, returning to claim my
freedom. It was always such a jolt to
return to England, a messy crash landing, the last of which had almost finished
me.
I wanted what she had, to put it all together in
one place, build a life of value without forever spinning around the globe. But perhaps that was my destiny, to link East
to West. Before I’d left England my father had said ‘Your highs are so high and
your lows so low’ and I’d seen he was right, but that was life for me. The lows making the highs, the highs making
the lows, I didn’t want a plateau. I’d
seen so many people who’d settled for something. I’d heard of an idea that some people stopped
living at twenty, some at forty and some never did. That was what I wanted, to keep exploring
until the day I died.
“And before the jewellery business?” I continued.
“Have to leave school when I sixteen, work in
factory, every day make bag. Then do
like this girl,” she said pointing to a miniskirted waitress. “Look very sexy,
wear short skirt like this girl. Later I
go to work in casino, have to wear sexy outfit also, big boots come to here,” she
said sliding a leg from beneath the table and drawing a cut slightly above the knee.
“Good job, but not make much money, so I open
business in Siam Square.”
As she went to continue her phone rang.
“Hello’a,” she listened. “Why you speak Thai with
me, I can’t understand anything you say, if you want speak to me, speak English,”
listening again. “I don’t know, I think she like you but you have to tell her
how you feel….” she cupped her hand over the receiver. “English man call me
from Bangkok, more than forty already, have problem with girl.”
As she continued to talk I visualized the
overweight Westerner perspiring on the on the edge of his bed, fan whirring
overhead as he rubbed a sweaty fist against his brow. Some guys never seemed to get it, they really
thought the pretty things they courted were interested in more than a
wallet. It wasn’t about age; it was a series
of steps. You were dumb, you got your
fingers burnt and you wised up, but some people never got that far, like the
moths I’d watched flapping against the glass.
So many seemed to believe Thailand was different from home, a place
where love came easy but it was never like that. If you wanted a real relationship you had to
work at it like you did at home, accept that it was give and take that
something deeper would only come through years of fighting to know someone.
The sad thing was so many of the guys had never
been able to make relationships work at home, they’d overworked, waited for the
day when they’d retire and now there was a middle-aged Westerner perspiring on the
end of his bed, looks faded, mind muddled, a lifetime's savings ready to be
spent. Pretty as so many of the girls
were I rarely envied the men I saw with them, sat silently in restaurants,
small talk exhausted, nothing to do but drink and smoke. If you got unlucky the girl would take you for
everything. You couldn’t blame them, parents
to support in a village, other jobs offering no more than an income to survive
on.
Finishing the call Yaa stared at the phone, “Fuck…
this guy so stupid.”
A mountain of food remaining I picked at a spicy
sausage.
“You mentioned something about having a son, is he
your son?”
“My brothers son, have no mother and my brother cannot
take care.”
“Where is he now?”
“With my parents in Bangkok.”
I looked out over the river, an eddy swirling close
to the bank.
“What would you like to do tonight?”
“Have to meet friend, go eleven o’clock,” she said.
I was dumbstruck, our first date over at eleven.
“Please don’t be angry, arrange to meet friend
before I come Chiang Mai, can see you later, come your room.”
Finishing our food I asked for the bill. It was the biggest I’d had since arriving.
“Very cheap here,” Yaa said as she plucked it from
my fingers, “I think this is a good price.”
“I might see you later?”
She nodded.
I rode to my guesthouse watching football until
three and sleeping until I was woken by a knock. Looking at the clock it was just after five.
“You not think I come?” she said as I opened the
door and she marched in throwing her bag on the table. It was like some kind of romantic fairytale
which only had a home in fiction. I
climbed back to bed and watched as she pulled the dress over her head. She looked tired, coming to lie on my chest
and then falling asleep as I stroked her hair.
It was the kind of time I loved, feeling the weight of a girl as she breathed
against my skin, the comfort of having someone beside me reassuring me it was
O.K. to sleep. It was one of the only
things I missed about Suzy.
Waking late on Tuesday I brushed the hair from her
face.
“I drink a lot last night,” she whispered as she
stirred. “What you do today?”
“Well, I’ve already missed training, so up to you.”
“I think I stay bed.”
Making love in the afternoon we slipped back to
sleep until three thirty.
“I have to go boxing,” I said.
She stretched beneath the sheets and I pulled it back
to reveal her nipples. I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted to go to training every day and
return to find her in my bed.
“I go see Nen, can see you tonight, come Bubble?”
She said.
“Maybe, tired after training.”
Putting in a hard session I met Gunner for dinner at
the Joy O’Clock updating one another on our movements as we finished the whiskey
from our previous visit. He’d been
seeing Off and she’d got as far as taking him to meet her parents on the Air
Force base. As I talked about Yaa I
realized I was in trouble.
“This girl’s unbelievable, smart, sexy, I’ve not
met a Thai girl like her,” Gunner listened politely and broke in.
“It’s my birthday today.”
“You fucking idiot, why didn’t you say?”
“Why, were you going to buy me a big present?”
“How about another whiskey, nothing too crazy we’ll
just go to a place up the road.”
We moved to an outdoor spot on the drag to town. Always full of Thai’s, its patioed garden was
screened by a bamboo fence, the young waitress giggling as she tried to
understand our order.
“Sangsom sodaaaa set, Kao jai?” Gunner queried. He liked practising his Thai, always testing
me to see if I’d picked up anything new. As he reeled off some new vocabulary I yawned.
“So, how old are you today?”
“Thirty three.”
“I thought you were thirty six.”
“Thirty three.”
“So, how does it feel to be thirty three?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Not so bad, thirty felt strange but after that you
just keep adding the years.”
Despite having spent a fair amount of time together
we still didn’t know much about one another, what we did at home, where we
lived, everything we talked about was the present. What you did today, what you were doing
tonight. The past and the future never
came up.
“Funny isn’t it, all the time together chasing
girls and drinking whiskey and we hardly know a thing about each other,” I
said. “What do you do in Norway?”
“I work for a big Norwegian company. I know you haven’t heard of them, my job to
run the I.T. department.”
“They’re not missing you?”
“I have a girl standing in for me, when I get back
she has a new role.”
It was more confirmation that none of us were indispensable;
we were all components, all replaceable.
If you wanted to delude yourself that the world would stop turning
without you, you could, but I didn’t. I
wanted to face life with my head up, see work for what it was and find
something worthwhile to fill my days.
“So, what brought you here?” I continued.
“I’ve been travelling eight months, the first six
on a hospital ship off Sierra Leone. My
job a store man, getting supplies from the markets. Every day I drive the Land Rover into
Freetown, crazy traffic.”
“Your first big trip?”
“Yar, I always take nice holiday before, go skiing
or go to Eastern Europe but I wanted to see the world. You cannot do this in two weeks.”
“And why the Muay Thai?”
“I do Kung Fu now for six years, when I come to
Thailand and read about Thai Boxing I want to do, but now I cannot,” he said
dropping his gaze to his rib.
“Ah well, chasing girls is more exciting. How long
are you staying?”
“Now I have my injury, maybe two more weeks. No point being here if I cannot train.”
“Then what?”
“I fly to New Zealand
for a month, then Mexico and
back to Norway
in November.”
“You live in Bergen, right?”
“Yes.”
“Have a house?”
“No, I not buy yet, it’s quite expensive.”
“Yeah, same in England, at least one hundred
thousand pounds.”
“Yar, Norway about the same, I have the money, but I
don’t know.”
“You could buy a condo in Chiang Mai?”
He looked at me ruefully, he enjoyed my playful
ideas and I could tell he had trouble justifying why they weren’t valid. The Thai wife, the cheap house, it was all
doable. Sure it wouldn’t be without its
problems but any life was like that. You
could have your problems at home or you can have them in the sunshine.
Opening the whiskey he began to give me details.
“Yar, my job pays quite well; last year I sold my
shares which gave me one hundred and twenty thousand dollar.”
That was a nice amount of money and I wondered why
he was holding back on the house.
“How about you, what do you do in England?”
“Anything for money, taught English in China for seven
months, before that a charity fundraiser, before that a barman, before that a
business analyst.”
It always felt good to slip in the business analyst,
like I’d made it to the top at a young age and worked out a better way to live
and perhaps I had. I might have been an
assistant analyst for a gas company rather than a real one for KPMG, but I’d
held my own and most importantly I’d turned my back on it.
I was at ease with Gunner, unlike Swedish Karl he
was someone I could talk to, giving details sure he wasn’t trying to fit me
into a box.
“I don’t think I could live like that, not knowing
about the future,” he said.
“So how about girls?” I asked.
“At home now I not have girlfriend.”
“Last girlfriend?”
He took a moment to think, “Three years ago.”
That didn’t surprise me, I was sure he could have
had a girl, but he wasn’t in a rush, responsible job, good money, if he
decided to take the plunge he could step right in.
“Nice girls in Norway?”
“Yar, have many.”
“Anyone you like now?”
“Before I come travelling a couple of girls
interested in me, my friend’s sister and another girl who already have a
child.”
“Which one were you interested in?”
“Ah, both nice, but the girl with the child is very
nice. She sometimes comes to my home for
dinner.”
“Sure you don’t want a Thai wife?” he looked at me
without answering and finishing the small bottle we both had dates and called
for the bill, placing the notes on the tray as the waitress she said something
in Thai.
“Did she just say ‘you want me, pay 2,500 baht?” I
said
Gunner turned to look at her.
“Can say again?”
“2,500 baht.”
Giggling, we left.
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