Private Dancer (16 page)

Anyway, I recommended to head office that we send Pete to plug the hole in London. Didn't tell them why, of course, just said he was a hard worker and pointed that as he still had his old flat in London we'd save money on hotel bills. All we'd have to do is pay him a per diem allowance, we'd save money and Pete'd make a few quid to boot. Everyone's happy, and hopefully by the time he gets back to Bangkok he'll be over Joy and back to his old self. We'll see.

PETE Joy left my room just before mid-day. I packed my suitcase and arranged for the hotel to put the rest of my things in storage. Joy phoned me about an hour after she left. “I want tell you I love you,“ she said. ”Not forget me, Pete. Please not forget me.”

I told her not to be silly and that I'd see her in the German restaurant that evening.

“Not forget my money,” she said.

“I won't forget you, and I won't forget your money,” I promised.

“I love you too much,” she said.

I went around to Fatso's Bar for lunch. Big Ron does a great roast chicken dinner, stuffing,

roast potatoes, thick, lumpy gravy, just like Mum used to make. He was an accountant, Big Ron,

number two in one of the biggest foreign banks in South Africa, but somewhere along the line he learned to cook and he's forever popping into the kitchen. Quality control, he calls it, but I reckon most of the quality control takes place in the bar. He eats at least five full meals a day.

Fish and chips. Gammon steak, fried egg and chips. Liver, bacon and onions. Now he's so big,

taxi drivers won't take him because they think he'll damage their suspension. Charng, they call him down Nana Plaza. Elephant. Actually, what they say is ‘Ay Charng’, which means ‘fucking elephant’.

I told him that Joy was going back to Surin while I was in London and he bellowed with laughter.

“Check the fucking postmarks,” he said.

“What do you mean?” “Standard con,” he said. “Page one of the hooker's handbook.” He pushed away the remnants of his apple pie and ice cream and belched. One of the girls whipped the plate away. "You find a farang gullible enough to pay you to stop work. You tell him you're going to stay with your family, help them plant rice, pick pineapples, get boy scouts out of the buffalo's hooves,

whatever. Farang goes home, satisfied that his girl is doing the decent thing. Hooker fucks off to Pattaya or Phuket, anywhere where she's not going to bump into gullible farang should he arrive back unexpectedly."

“No,” I said. “Not Joy. Joy's different.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'm only giving her ten thousand baht a month,” I said. “She could earn five times that in Zombie.”

“You're forgetting one thing, Pete. Thais are basically fucking lazy.” He waves his arm at the five girls standing behind his bar, all wearing red jackets and black skirts. "Bone idle, given half a chance. Why do you think I sit on this stool for sixteen hours a day? It's not for the fucking atmosphere, that much I can tell you. It's because if I wasn't here, they'd not get any work done.

The place'd grind to a fucking halt faster than you could say siesta."

The girls all smiled at Big Ron, though I knew that they all understood English. Noo pulled a face at me and mouthed a Thai obscenity. She was hiding behind one of the other girls so that Big Ron couldn't see her. I tried not to grin, because Big Ron didn't take any answering back from his staff.

“So what did you mean by check the postmarks?”

He belched again and put his hands on his massive stomach like a pregnant woman checking that all was as it should be within. "To keep the gullible farang happy, you write to him, right?

But the girls aren't stupid, so if they have jumped ship to Phuket or wherever, they send their letters back to the village and get someone there to forward them to gullible farang. Farang checks the postmark and is satisfied that his girl is doing the decent thing. He writes back to her at the village, and her mate sends the letter down to Phuket."

My roast chicken dinner arrived and I started eating. “I phone her, too,” I said.

“She's got a phone up country?”

“Communal phone. A phone box at the roadside. I call up and whoever answers goes and fetches her. Her house is about ten minutes away.”

“Call forwarding,” said Big Ron. “New technology.”

I told him to fuck off. Joy wasn't lying to me, she wanted to stay with her father, and she didn't want to work in Nana Plaza.

“Whatever you say, Pete,” he said.

Jimmy came down the stairs, rubbing his nose. His eyes were bloodshot and running as if he were getting over a cold. He groaned as he saw the three glasses of Tequila and orange lined up in front of his stool. “Which of you bastards did that?” he yelled.

Alan was sniggering into his lager.

“Don't you Big Glass me, you lanky streak of piss,” said Jimmy. He picked up one of his drinks and drained it in one gulp. “I'm on a mission tonight. I'm going to bar fine the geezer at Zombie.” The geezer was a striking katoey who had started working in Zombie two weeks earlier. Matt and Rick had both bar fined her and swore blind that she was the best they'd ever had.

When I'd finished eating I paid my bill and walked down the road to a Bangkok Bank cash machine where I withdrew ten thousand baht for Joy. One month’s salary. I went into a newsagents nearby to buy an envelope to put the money in, and while I was there I saw a rack of stamped airmail envelopes. I bought seven, figuring that if I gave them to Joy she'd be sure to write to me once a week.

I went back to the hotel and wrote my London address of each of them. Joy knew my address but I wasn't sure how good her handwriting would be.

JIMMY As soon as Pete had left Fatso's, Big Ron started taking the piss out of him. He's merciless, is Big Ron. No one's safe. Mind you, he had a point with Pete. Pete's been in Bangkok long enough to know how these girls work. They don't start working in the bars because they want to meet the man of their dreams, they do it because they want to earn money. That's all farangs are to them, a source of income. It's like Big Ron says, we're like money machines to them, ATMs. Joy's pressing Pete's buttons and he keeps paying out. He's asking to get ripped off. There's only one way to find out if a bargirl likes you, I mean really likes you, and that's to stop giving them any money. You'll find out soon enough what their real feelings are. They're gone like the fucking wind. But there's no mystery with Joy. She's even sold the gold he gives her. That there should show him what she thinks about him. He reckons he's giving her jewellery, she sees it as money.

I stopped trying to have a relationship with the girls long ago. It always ends in tears. Now I just pay 'em and screw 'em, simple as that. They're happy, I'm happy, no one gets hurt, and that's how it should be. It doesn't mean you can't have fun with them, you can. I'm not like Big Ron,

there's an anger when he does it. I think he doesn't even like the girls he screws. Receptacles for jism, he calls them, and he usually does 'em two at a time. Nothing wrong with it, but it's the way he badmouths them that I don't like. I mean, I came in this morning and he was fuming. I asked him what was wrong.

“Got a right fucking pervert last night,” he scowled. “Wouldn't even let me come over her face.”

See, there's an anger in him, you can see it in his face when he talks about them. I reckon a bargirl shafted him badly some time in the past, and now he hates them all. That happens a lot with guys who try to get close to the girls they bar fine. They try to treat them like regular girlfriends, and they get all resentful and bitter when they get burned. Better to not even try to get involved, that's what I say.

See, that's one of the reasons I prefer katoeys. I know the guys take the piss out of me, but you know where you are with a katoey: it's a straight forward financial transaction, no emotional involvement, none of that stupid flirting, “I love you no shit”, all that sort of crap. They know they're guys with their dicks cut off, I know they're guys with their dicks cut off, all I want is to come and boy, do they know how to do that. They're experts. It's like I always say, no one knows what a guy wants more than another guy. That's not to say I'm gay, because I'm not, I reckon homosexuals are sad fucks who need therapy or medication to put them back on the right track.

Katoeys don't look like guys, they look like goddesses. There's this bar in Patpong, King's Castle I think it's called, where half the dancers are katoeys. It's a great bar, one of the busiest on the strip. Now, the thing about King's Castle, is that all the katoeys are absolute stunners and they dance at the front. The girls, the real girls, are as ugly as dogs, and they dance at the back.

Most of the punters don't even know that they're katoeys, they just think that the pretty girls are at the front and the dogs are at the back. Most of the guys who bar fine the katoeys don't even know they're going with men. They go back home to Germany or Denmark or wherever they're from thinking they had a night of great sex with a pretty Oriental girl. Little do they know they were with a man and that they came inside a cylinder of flesh carved from a dick and sneakily lubricated with a spot of KY Jelly. Unless you really know what to look for, you'd never know.

They've got tits, great legs, superb arses, and they make love the way women do in blue movies.

Lots of enthusiasm, lots of noise. Your average Thai hooker does it with her head turned to the side or with her eyes closed, but katoeys do it like they love it. Okay, I know it's an act, but at least they take the trouble to fake it.

But afterwards, there's none of the lies that the bargirls tell. None of that crap about sick fathers or young sisters who need money for school or dead water buffaloes. You pay them and they leave. Strictly business. And that's the way it should be. They give you sex, you pay for it,

end of story. Katoeys never phone you up to sweet talk you, or curl up next to you and tell you that they love you, only you. Katoeys don't bother with the lies, the games, the crap. You're better off with them. Trust me.

PETE I got to the restaurant just before seven o'clock but she didn't turn up until half past. She rushed into the restaurant as if she were scared that I wouldn't be there. She gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. “I sorry, theerak,” she said. Theerak. Darling. I hated the word. It was what the bargirls called their customers and whenever Joy said it I'd flinch.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Have traffic too much,” she said, sitting down opposite me and putting her red leather wallet on the tablecloth between us as if daring me to open it and check that my photograph was there.

I looked at my watch. “What time's your bus?” I asked.

“Midnight. I tell you before.”

“Do you want to eat?”

She shrugged. “Up to you.”

I ordered a few Thai dishes. I wasn't particularly hungry. I wasn't looking forward to going back to England and leaving Joy alone. I had a sudden urge to take her back with me, even though I knew it was impossible. She didn't have a passport, never mind a visa.

“What you think, Pete?” she asked.

I told her.

“I want come with you, too,” she said. “I not want stay alone.”

“You won't be alone,” I said. “Your father's there. Your brothers.”

“I not like stay my house,” she said. “Mon die in my room. I scared phee too much.” Phee.

Ghost.

“You are going to stay in Surin, aren't you?”

“You want?”

“You know that's what I want.”

“Okay. I can do for you.”

I took the envelopes out of my pocket and slid them across the table. She inspected them one by one, then grinned.

“You think I not write to you?”

I smiled back. “No, I know you'll write. I just wanted to make it easier for you.” I gave her another envelope, this one with her name on it. “Your salary,” I said.

She put the envelope under her wallet without opening it.

The food arrived. Neither of us ate much. I couldn't taste anything. I wanted to tell Joy so much, that I was going to miss her, that I hoped she'd be good while I was away, but I knew that there was nothing I could say that would make me feel any better about going. And no matter what she said to me, I was always going to have my doubts. Big Ron's words kept echoing in my mind. Standard con. Was Joy different? As I watched her eat, pecking delicately at her food as if she too didn't have any appetite, I wanted to believe that she wasn't the same as the thousands of other bargirls who worked the red light areas. Time and time again I'd heard the boys in Fatso's talk about the stupid farangs who'd been ripped off, farangs who should have known better. Had I joined the legion of sad fucks, too? God, I hoped not. But the fact that Joy had given up work for me surely meant something. And when I asked her to go back to Surin and wait for me, she'd readily agreed. Everything I asked her to do, she did. So what was I worried about? I'm just not sure, but there was a nagging doubt at the back of my mind, a feeling that something was wrong.

“Joy?”

She looked up from her food and smiled sweetly. “A-rai?” What?

“Do you love me?” “What you think?”

“I don't know.”

“Why you not know?”

I shrugged. I wasn't sure what to say. Voicing my doubts might upset her, and I didn't want to do that only hours before I had to say goodbye to her for two months.

“Pete, I have you only one. If I not have you, I die.”

I smiled and reached over to stroke her hand, the one she was holding her fork with. “You don't have a Thai boyfriend?”

Her smile froze. I'd offended her. I stroked her hand again but she pulled it away. “Why you ask?”

I sighed. “Because many of my friends say that the girls who work in the bars always have Thai boyfriends or husbands.”

“I not same girls who work bar,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

She looked me straight in the eye as if daring me to argue. "If I not love you, I work Zombie,

Pete. I not go Surin. I have nothing in Surin, but I go for you. I wait you come back Thailand."

“I know,” I repeated. I wished I'd never started this conversation.

“I want you believe me, Pete.”

“I do.” And I did.

When we'd finished eating I paid the bill and we went outside. She flagged down a taxi and kissed me softly on the cheek. “I love you,” she said. She turned and opened the door. She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but on impulse I put my hand on the door handle.

“I'm coming with you,” I said.

She frowned, but before she could argue I put my hand on her hip and guided her on to the back seat and slipped in besides her.

“We go Dynasty?” she said.

I shook my head. “I'll go to the bus station with you,” I said.

“Better I go alone.”

“Why?”

“Bus station very busy,” she said.

The taxi driver asked her where she wanted to go and she told him brusquely in Thai to wait.

“I go with you to Dynasty,” she said.

“No, I want to say goodbye to you at the bus station.”

Her lips went all tight and for a moment there was an icy hardness to her eyes. A horrible coldness gripped my insides.

“Where are you staying?” I asked her.

“With Sunan,” she said.

“Okay, let's go to Sunan's house and get your things.”

“Things?”

“Your bag. Your clothes.”

“Not have.” That didn't make any sense at all. Joy was staying in Surin most of the time, but she had been in Bangkok for several days and I'd seen her in several different outfits. There was no way she'd come down with no clothes. If nothing else she had her make up and her hair shampoo.

I looked her, the tight feeling in my stomach getting worse by the second. She was lying, I was sure of that, but why? What was there to lie about? Why didn't she want me to see Sunan's room?

“What's wrong, Joy?” I asked her.

“I not want you go Sunan's room.”

“Why?”

“I shy. Ben sa-lam.” It's a slum.

I took both her hands in mine. I told her that I didn't care where Sunan lived, I didn't care how bad it was, she was all I cared about. I just wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before I went back to England. She listened to what I was saying, but it was clear from the look on her face that she still didn't want me to go back with her.

I began to get annoyed. I was giving her ten thousand baht, I'd paid for her to stop work, I was supporting her, the least she could do was to show me where she'd been staying. I'd told her why,

I made it clear we'd only be there for a few minutes while we collected her things, surely I wasn't asking too much? Unless. Unless she was hiding something. I sat back in the taxi and folded my arms across my chest. I looked at her. She looked at me. I waited. Eventually she spoke to the driver in Thai. I heard the words “Suphan Kwai”, Buffalo Bridge, the area where Sunan lived.

Joy didn't say a word during the drive to Suphan Kwai. She looked out of the side window,

her face turned away from me. I kept trying to talk to her but all I got were head shakes and shrugs. She was sulking, big-time. That annoyed me because I hadn't done anything wrong. If she was hiding something from me, then she was in the wrong. She was supposed to be my girlfriend. She was supposed to be in love with me, and love was supposed to be based on honesty. I'd let her come around to my hotel room on many, many occasions. She'd stayed over,

the girls on reception didn't even ask to see her identity card any more, they knew she was with me.

I stopped trying to get her to talk. I tried to think where I'd gone wrong. The taxi stopped on a road lined with hawkers stalls and the air was filled with the cloying smell of fried food. I paid the taxi driver. Joy was already walking away down an alley, her clumpy black shoes clattering on the concrete. I hurried after her. She refused to look at me as we walked, despite my attempts to get her to talk.

“Are you angry at me?” I asked.

She shook her head, but still she wouldn't look me in the eye.

A couple of hundred yards down the alley was a traditional wooden Thai house surrounded by a brick wall. Joy went through a doorway. An old Thai man with a towel wrapped around his waist was ladling water over himself with a small plastic bucket. He grinned at Joy, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth. Joy ignored him. We went around the corner of the house. A fat woman with her hair tied up in a bun was scraping food around a wok. She unscrewed the top of a bottle of something with her teeth and poured the contents into her wok. She said something to Joy and Joy grunted.

“Who are they?” I asked Joy. “They live here too,” she said. We went into the house and up an open wooden staircase.

There were two doors at the top, one to the left and one to the right, which Joy knocked. There were several pairs of shoes and sandals outside. I waited halfway up the stairs. Joy put her face close to the door and said something, in a language I didn't recognise. Someone replied. Sunan, I think. Joy turned her face away from me as she spoke. I looked at the sandals and counted nine pairs. They were all scuffed and dirty. Some large, some small. The large ones must have belonged to men. Were there men inside? Was that why Joy didn't want me to see her room? Did she have a boyfriend? But if she did, why did she let me come back with her? Why not just refuse to tell the taxi driver where to go?

Joy said something to Sunan again, then turned to look at me. “Room dirty,” she said. “Sunan want to clean.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I don't mind.”

“She very shy.”

“So I'll wait.” I sat down on the stairs. Joy glared at me. Really glared. I smiled up at her.

“Better we wait outside,” she said.

I smiled again. “I can wait here.” Joy kept looking at me. Her eyes were hard, really hard. I kept smiling because I knew that was how to deal with Thais. So long as I kept smiling she wouldn't express her anger. That was the theory anyway. But behind the smile my mind was racing. I couldn't for the life of me understand why she was behaving like this. I'd paid for her to stop work. Thirty minutes earlier I'd given her ten thousand baht. All I wanted to do was to take her to the bus station, to say goodbye to her, to show that I cared. What had started as an expression of my feelings for her had degenerated into a clash of wills, mine against hers. I was forcing her to do something she didn't want to do, the height of rudeness in Thai terms. So I smiled and waited and felt like shit.

Ten minutes later I was still sitting on the stairs and Joy was standing by the door.

“Joy, I want to go into the room,” I said.

She shouted something to Sunan. Sunan answered. I couldn't make out what either of them had said. “She not ready.”

I stood up. “Now,” I said. “If you won't let me into the room, I'm going to go home.”

“Up to you.”

“If I go home, you won't see me again.”

She looked at me, her lips pressed tightly together.

I fought to control my anger. I wanted to take back the money I'd given her. I wanted to take the Mickey Mouse watch off her wrist. I wanted to take the gold chain from around her neck,