Private Dancer (17 page)

another present. I wanted to tell her that I knew that she was lying to me and that if she was lying then she couldn't possibly love me.

“Joy, tell me everything's okay. Tell me I can go into the room now. Please.”

“Why you not believe me, Pete? Why you always think I lie to you?”

“Can I look at Sunan's room?”

She didn't say anything. I turned on my heel and walked away. I hoped that she'd run after me,

or shout my name, but she said nothing. I walked down the stairs and out of the house. The old couple were sitting at a rickety folding table eating their evening meal and they grinned as I walked by them. I walked across the yard and through the gap in the brick wall and down the darkened alley. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't want it to end like this. I didn't want to walk away from her angry, not when I was due to go back to London for months. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Joy was standing at the wall, watching me impassively. I walked slowly back. “Why, Joy?” I asked her quietly. “Why do let me get so angry?”

“I don't know,” she whispered.

“Why didn't you come after me?”

“What you want me say, Pete? I not know what to say.”

“I want you to tell me that you love me. That you don't have anyone else, that you only want me.”

“You know I love you.”

I shook my head in exasperation. “You say you do, but you don't act as if you do. All I wanted to do was to go into your room, to see where you stayed. That's all. I don't understand why you wouldn't let me into the room.”

"The room no good. Dirty. Sunan say she want to clean.

She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. I didn't want to laugh, but I couldn't help myself, she looked so damned cute. As my face broke into a smile she put her head on one side and fluttered her long lashes even faster.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Stop it.”

She stepped forward and grabbed me around the waist. “Not fight with me, Pete. I love you, I not want fight with you.”

I rested my cheek against the top of her head and breathed in the smell of her hair. I wanted to make love to her there and then, to take her, to possess her. It always surprised me how quickly anger could turn to desire, how one moment I could want to scream at her, then just as quickly I wanted to be inside her, kissing her and telling her that if I could I'd die for her.

“Pete, if you want, you can see my room,” she whispered. She slipped her hand in mine and together we walked back to the house. She took me back up the stairs and knocked on the door.

Sunan opened it, a big smile on her face.

“Sawasdee ka,” she said, opening the door wide.

The room was about twelve feet square, with a door that I supposed led to a bathroom. There was a large fridge in one corner and a Formica table in another, and under a single window were a pile of sleeping mats. The floor was bare wood and whatever cleaning Sunan had been doing didn't involve sweeping because there were empty soft drink cans and cigarette packets scattered around. There were two suitcases by the sleeping mats. Joy and Sunan stood in the centre of the room and watched my reaction.

I smiled but I felt sick inside. I could sense their unease, they were still unhappy at having to let me in. I looked around, wondering what was making them so nervous. I knew for sure that Joy was lying: it wasn't that they were shy about the state of the room, they were hiding something else. There didn't seem to be any personal items that belonged to Joy. I'd given her two bags, a black leather backpack and a red Mickey Mouse shoulder bag, and they weren't there. She had several photographs of me, some taken in Zombie, others taken when I'd visited her house in Surin, and she'd told me that she'd put them in frames. They weren't in the room,

either. In fact, it didn't look like a room where girls stayed. There was a large poster of a Ferrari on one wall, and a poster of a girl on a motorcycle on another. They didn't seem like the sort of pictures that Sunan would want to look at. There were marks on the wall by the fridge where something had been stuck up and taken down. There were a dozen marks, and from the spacing I figured there had been photographs there. My stomach was churning. I just knew that Sunan had taken the photographs down because she didn't want me to see them.

“Okay, Pete?” asked Joy.

No, I wasn't okay. I was far from okay. I could think of only one reason why they'd made such a fuss. Joy and Sunan weren't staying in the room alone. There'd been a man there. Maybe two men. Boyfriends or husbands. If they'd been family members, brothers or cousins, there'd have been no reason to have hidden them from me. “Yeah,” I said. “I'm okay.”

“We go now?”

“Go where?”

“Bus station. I go Surin. I go now.”

I nodded at the suitcase. “Aren't you going to take your clothes?”

“Not mine. They belong Sunan.”

“What about your bag? Your make-up? Underwear?”

“Not have. When I stay room Sunan, I wear her clothes. Use her make-up.”

It was weird. She was going back to Surin without so much as a toothbrush. I knew she travelled light - we'd spent four days travelling around Isarn and she'd only had a carrier bag with a couple of shirts and a wash-kit - but it didn't make sense that she had no clothes or stuff to take back. I told her that I wanted to use the bathroom. I didn't, I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anyone hiding there. There wasn't, and there were only two toothbrushes on a shelf on the wall.

On the way out I looked down at the shoes and sandals outside the door. I tried to remember how many pairs there'd been before. I wracked my brains but couldn't recall. But I had a feeling that there was a pair of men's flip flops missing. Was that what had happened? Had there been a man in the room, and had Joy wanted me to go away so that he could get out? And if there had been a man there, who was he? None of this made any sense to me. She was staying in Surin, she was doing everything I asked of her, surely she couldn't have someone else in Bangkok?

We went back to the main road in silence. I didn't know what to say to her. If there had been a man in the room, then she was lying to me. If there hadn't been a man there, then I was being foolish. Either way the evening had been totally spoiled. Joy was going to back to Surin knowing that I didn't trust her.

She flagged down a taxi and told the driver that we wanted to go to the bus station. “What about Sunan?” I asked.

“Sunan stay Bangkok with Bird.”

Bird drove Sunan's Toyota pick-up truck and Sunan gave him a few thousand baht a month.

I'd seen him a few times and didn't know what to make of him. He rarely smiled and never spoke to me, usually he didn't even acknowledge my presence. Joy had said that he was jealous of farangs because they had money and he didn't. I felt suddenly sorry for Joy. She was going to be stuck on a bus all alone for eight or nine hours, then she'd be staying in Surin without Sunan or her friends until I came back. I was treating her like a piece of furniture, putting her into storage until I needed her again. I wished that I could take her to London with me. She was looking out of the window and she didn't turn around when I slid my hand on to her thigh. “I'm sorry, Joy,” I said.

“I sorry too,” she said.

“Why? Why are you sorry?”

“Because you not happy.” She finally turned to look at me, then leaned over and kissed me,

on the cheek, close to my lips. I put my arm around her and stroked her hair. She smelled fresh and clean and new. “I wish you could come to London with me,” I said.

“I want go with you,” she said. “I want go everywhere with you.”

The bus station was packed, and I appeared to be the only farang there. There were scores of buses and queues everywhere. Hardly any signs were in English and I couldn't see any departure times. People kept looking at Joy and me with undisguised curiosity. I wondered whether they automatically assumed that she was a bargirl.

Joy didn't seem to be aware that we were being stared at and talked about. She went over to a line of booths and talked to an old woman behind a glass screen above which were several lines of Thai writing and the letters VIP. Joy handed over a couple of banknotes and came back with a ticket.

“I go VIP bus,” she said. “VIP bus has aircon.” A Thai teenager came up and spoke to Joy.

“He take us to bus,” she said. We followed the youngster to a bus which was already threequarters full.

I asked Joy if she wanted a soft drink or some food to take on her journey and she said no,

she'd probably sleep all the way to Surin. I wanted to hug her and kiss her but Thais don't show their feelings in public and I didn't want everyone on the bus to see her in the arms of a farang.

“Joy, you know I love you,” I said.

She nodded seriously. “I know, Pete.”

“You'll be okay in Surin?”

“Not okay. I miss you too much, but I do for you.”

I felt ashamed that I'd doubted her. If she didn't love me, there'd be no point in her going to Surin. She could earn much more than the paltry ten thousand baht I was giving her. And she'd obviously be much happier in Bangkok with her friends than stuck in a village in Isarn. I took out my wallet and gave her five thousand baht. “Buy something for your family,” I said. I didn't like giving her money, certainly not in view of the gawping passengers, but I couldn't think of any other way of showing her how much I cared. She took it and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans.

We both jumped as the bus driver sounded his horn. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then scampered up into the bus. She got a seat at the back and the last thing I saw as the bus pulled out was her waving and blowing kisses at me through the window. JOY I was so annoyed at the way Pete behaved. I told him I didn't want him to go to Sunan's room,

but he kept on insisting. What was I supposed to do? He practically pushed me into the taxi. I wanted to cry but I kept looking out of the window so he wouldn't see my tears. I thought about taking him to another room, maybe Apple's or Cat's, but I'd already said Sunan was there so if he hadn't seen Sunan he'd have known I hadn't taken him to the right room. I don't understand why he didn't just do as I asked. We could have said goodbye at the restaurant and everything would have been just fine. You see, I wasn't sure if Park would be in Sunan's room or not. He'd said that he was going to go and see his friends in Nana Plaza but when I left him to go and see Pete he was still asleep.

We'd arranged to get the late bus so I knew he'd be back before midnight, and there's no telephone in the room so I couldn't call first. I felt so trapped, it was like Pete was pushing me into a corner, trapping me.

When we got to the house I rushed upstairs and spoke to Sunan. Yeah, Park was there. I called him all sort of names through the door: if he hadn't been so lazy then Sunan could have just tidied his things away and then we could have let Pete in. Sunan was telling me to get Pete away from the door so that Park could get out, but Pete wouldn't move. He was so rude, he just sat there and waited. Then it all got really stupid, because Sunan told Park he'd have to go out of the bathroom window. He climbed up on an upturned bucket and Sunan pushed, but the window wasn't quite big enough and he could only get half-way through. Sunan started giggling and even Park saw the funny side, but I was in the hallway with Pete and I didn't think it was amusing at all. If Pete caught Park in the room, he'd stop sending me money, and then where would we be?

After five minutes of pushing and pulling, Park realised that he wasn't going to be able to get through the window, so Sunan told me to take Pete outside. I said that he wouldn't go but Sunan said we didn't have a choice. The main window in the room was welded shut and the door was the only way in and out.

Pete grew more and more impatient, and all I could say was that Sunan was tidying up. I could see that he didn't believe me, but what could I do? I could hardly drag him away, could I?

Eventually he got really annoyed and told me that he didn't trust me. He stormed off. I went after him, but he was really angry. Why are farangs so quick to lose their temper? It's as if they don't have any control over their emotions.

I didn't know what to say to him to calm him down. I stood in the alley and waited to see what he'd do. I know he loves me, and whenever he's been angry before he's always come back, so I just waited. Sure enough, after a few minutes he walked back to the house and asked me if I still loved him. What did he expect me to say? “No Pete, I hate you.” Is that what he expected me to say? And then what would happen? He'd get all upset and I wouldn't get any more money. It's such a stupid question. A Thai man would never ask his wife if she loved him. And a Thai woman would never ask her husband, either. It's one of the most pointless questions a person can ask. If someone stays with you, then of course they love you. If they don't love you, they'd just leave. It's obvious, isn't it? Well, it's obvious to me, but it doesn't seem to be obvious to farangs.

Anyway, he came back and that was all that mattered. I figured that by then Park would have gotten out of the room so I told Pete it would be all right to go back. Sure enough, he'd gone,

though I could see Pete looking at the shoes outside the door and I wondered if he'd noticed that Park's sandals had gone. Sometimes Park can be really stupid. He should have left his sandals where they were, but I suppose he didn't think. He'd taken his things with him but he'd taken my bags too so I had to tell Pete that I'd been wearing Sunan's clothes while I'd been in Bangkok.

Pete kept looking around the room like he was a detective looking for clues. I mean, what more did he want? I'd let him into the room, I'd done as he'd asked, and he still wasn't happy. I was just glad that Sunan had taken all the photographs down. Park was in most of them.

He took me to the bus station. Before we went I told Sunan to tell Park to go to Surin the following day. It meant I'd have to suffer the bus ride on my own but I couldn't take the risk of Pete seeing him at the bus station. He might have recognised him from Nana Plaza.