Thai Girl (43 page)

Life on the beach went on much as before, Fon working the height of the tourist season for every baht she could earn, he leading the life of a traveller in a land which for
the farang
flows with milk and honey. When she stopped briefly for a break they could spend a little time together, and there was a daily massage when they always talked intensively for the whole hour. Fon kept well clear of Ben's room, just as he knew he could not be seen near hers nor show her any physical affection in public. But what was now very different for Ben was the fact that their friendship was secure and that even if Fon could not be with him all of the time, he was sure she wanted to be.

Several times they ate together at night with Jinda and Joy. Somehow there was always lots to talk about, Fon using her small store of English to great effect. Ben now knew her village, her mother and sister and about her dream to send Joy to the private school she had shown him on the mainland. But it frustrated him that she understood so little of his life in England. It was impossible for her to imagine his upbringing in Haywards Heath, his world of school and university and the pressures of planning a career. Because of the language gap he could explain very little and when he tried, he used words and concepts that were beyond her.

As he sat on the beach and daydreamed, he again wondered how Fon would adapt if he could take her to England. But there were so many obstacles. He knew that because of their reputation, Thai women were often refused visas, a masseuse perhaps being the least likely person to get one. Nor could he afford the enormous cost of an extra air ticket and of looking after her in England. It was she who was the only one with an income and she would lose that as soon as she left the island.

He tried to imagine her on the cold streets of England, deprived of her family, of Thai television and music and her beloved som tam. It was all so difficult and needed more time and thought, though he was not going to let anything spoil the last few days they still had together.

As the day came closer when he was to meet Emma at the airport for the flight home, Ben wanted to make the most of every possible moment with Fon. One evening as it was getting dark after a late massage, he asked her if they could go and eat together.

‘Okay, we find Goong,' she said. ‘Remember my friend Goong, massage lady? Her auntie have new baby.'

Fon set off along the beach at speed, Ben following happily in her wake. An evening alone with her would have been better but this was a good second best.

‘You like pork balls?' she demanded. ‘Banana roti, okay?' she said, stopping to buy cooked foods at stalls along the sand.

At the far end of the beach he followed her into the trees where they came to some low huts on the fringe of the jungle. The first hut, roughly built

of wood with a tin roof, had a low veranda on which an elderly couple were squatting, the old man with a faded sarong round his waist, the woman holding a new baby. Fon stooped low under the overhang of the roof and sat down with them.

Ben could see the aunt's resemblance to Goong, her smile as wide as the face, the eyes that crinkled up and disappeared into the smile and the button nose and protruding ears. She and the old man, both of them lined by years of work in the rice fields, were, Ben guessed, probably the proud grandparents of the child.

‘Ben,' said Fon, ‘this Mama, Papa and this their baby girl.'

Ben just did not know what to say. The night of passion here in this hovel when the baby had been conceived was simply unimaginable. He would have cast the woman as one of the Three Witches and the man as Time the Reaper rather than as parents of a tiny child.

The food Fon had brought was pooled with what Goong's auntie had already cooked and they were soon joined by Goong and by a wizened old woman with bright and lively eyes. As they sat talking under the overhang of the roof, to everyone's amusement Ben was given the baby to hold. She clung blindly to him, mouthing around for a nipple.

‘Want milk,' said Fon. ‘Better try Mama!'

‘But what are they all laughing about?' Ben asked her.

‘Mama she say, now Ben can have baby too … half Thai, half
farang.
'

Her answer left him thinking hard.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they ate the rich assortment of dishes with their fingers, the joking and bantering now centred around the old woman.

‘What's the story this time?' Ben asked Fon.

‘Old lady not have husband, very scared alone at night. Sometime bad devil come and sit on her bed … she ‘fraid devil bite off her big toe.'

Fon did her best impression of a devil that bites off old ladies' toes and everyone erupted in laughter.

The old woman then shuffled off without saying a word but soon came back and proudly showed Ben some photos of a stylish young woman standing by a fountain in a park.

‘This my daughter … stay university Bangkok. Before maybe, I want she marry you, Ben, but now cannot, no possible.' She gave a knowing look towards Fon who remained impassive. Ben had no idea what to make of all these assumptions about their relationship.

Unable to follow the chatter going on around him, Ben's thoughts then turned to the attractive daughter in the old woman's photos. If she could afford to study in Bangkok, perhaps there was some hope for the baby girl, even though born into poverty. The old couple must have left their Isaan rice farm to work on the island and if their child could now do well enough at school, she might be able to earn a better wage somewhere in town. But he was not entirely convinced this apparent progress would necessarily benefit them all in the long run. He still clung to the romantic ideal of a sustainable lifestyle among the rice fields in preference to the pressures and pollution of Bangkok. Nothing seemed worse to him than urban poverty.

When they had cleared the plates, the old folks got up, taking the baby inside the hut and left Ben with Fon and Goong on the veranda.

‘Can buy Mekhong … small bottle, Ben?' asked Fon.

‘Yes, why not. Some whisky would be great.'

‘Give money then … get better price than you.'

Fon disappeared with Ben's wallet to buy the whisky, leaving him wondering how he would pass the time with Goong. But Goong had a favour to ask and produced a postcard of Koh Samet.

‘This postcard for Luigi … live Milano. Massage with me many times.'

‘He's gone back home now though?'

‘Two months ago. But he write me, say he miss me … so Ben, please you write postcard.'

Ben was just finishing an innocent little message to Luigi when Fon got back with the whisky.

‘Goong! Why send card to Luigi? Luigi, Luigi, you go with Luigi!' she teased. Goong fell over backwards and covered her face in confusion.

‘No,' said Goong indignantly. ‘Not have sex with him, never.'

‘You virgin, so want sex!' Fon ducked as Goong swung at her and the two of them rolled across the floor in fits of laughter.

When the fooling was over, Goong wanted to correct an impression.

‘Ben, this postcard not serious. Luigi just friend. But can
farang
lady sleep with boyfriend before she marry?' she asked him with a serious face.

‘Yes, sometimes they do, but not always,' said Ben cautiously.

‘No good if lady like too much sex.'

‘Well,' he said, ‘what's important is to love someone. We only sleep together when it's special. Though it seems to me Thai men with money can get it whenever they want.'

‘Men can, women cannot,' said Goong emphatically.

‘But why the double standard now women can go on the pill?'

Goong did not reply but sat and looked at her feet for a moment before glancing up and bowling a fast one.

‘You have many ladies, Ben?' she demanded with a mischievous twinkle. Fon, who had been unusually quiet, joined in the uproar. The whisky was having its effect.

It had been a good evening but in the last moments before he was to leave Koh Samet and go home, Ben needed to be alone with Fon. Remembering the night out dancing at the Meridian bar with Jinda and Goong, he wanted to do it all over again, but this time without the others. The following day he put the idea to Fon who looked doubtful, so it came as a surprise when some time later she suddenly declared, ‘Ben, we go dancing tonight, Meridian. Just you and me.'

‘Nothing I'd like more,' he said, ‘well, almost nothing.'

‘But first I eat with Joy … she want me same Mama,' she said.

They met on the beach quite late and Ben was blown away by how she looked. Fon's little black dress was about the sexiest thing he had ever seen. It was short with a high collar, on the right bust a pocket, the left cut away to reveal a bare shoulder. He could not take his eyes off her and she was to be his alone for the whole evening.

‘Meridian bar too far … lady not walk,' she said twirling around on tiptoes to signify her status and elegance, ‘so we go
sorngthaew.'

She deserved a limousine no less, but they roused a sleeping driver from the seat of his battered pick-up, climbed into the back and jolted away up the track. It was a rough and dusty ride, the vehicle dipping and bumping over the rutted surface, the dry jungle lit by the one headlight that was still working. When they first heard the thump of the music as they neared the bar, Ben could see the sparkle of anticipation in Fon's eyes.

As before, the open air bar was alive with people, serious hedonists drinking and dancing and chilling out in the heat. The music quickly drew them onto the dance floor and they danced as they had never danced before, for the first time as a couple. They found that they danced well together, as if they had long been practising for this very moment. For Ben this was what he had so many times dreamed of, but it was far better in reality. He marvelled at his partner, at how she danced so easily in her slip-on shoes with so natural a sense of rhythm and with such poise and dignity.

They stopped for drinks and sat down at the table again, Ben now soaked with sweat, but when a favourite track came on, they were back on the floor again, re-energised by the music.

An English girl dancing alone came drifting by them.

‘Are you together … you two?' she asked Ben over the music.

‘Yes,' he replied.

‘You've come here to be with her?'

‘You bet I have,' he said, taking pride in being seen with Fon.

It struck him as strange that for her it was the opposite; he was a probable cause of embarrassment and disgrace.

At two in the morning when the bar closed, they took a pick-up back to Ao Sapporot, exhilarated but ready to drop. Ben expected Fon to go straight home but there was an unusual look in her eye, sombre, reflective.

‘Come, Ben, sit,' she said.

They sat side by side under the trees at the top of the beach looking at the stark white lights of the squid boats out at sea. Fon did not say much but there was an intensity to her mood that Ben had not seen before and did not quite understand. She had a faraway look on her face, half happy, half tragic, very different to that early morning on the bus returning from the North East when the good times together had so suddenly come to an end. If she was now no longer thinking that things were impossible between them, perhaps dealing with a glimmer of hope was proving even more difficult for her.

‘Ben, when you come back Koh Samet next time?' she asked him. It was the same question she had asked before, but this time it had much more significance.

‘I'm not sure, Fon. But really, I don't know how I can bear to be away from you at all … it's intolerable.'

‘So why you go then?' she asked innocently.

‘Because I've no choice. I can't change my flight and I'm running out of money … and there's the Thai visa problem too. I've got to go home and get myself sorted out.' He knew it was a feeble answer and was relieved when she accepted it without question.

‘Sometimes I dream get passport, go England,' said Fon with a sudden glow of happiness. ‘I dream, I dream, Ben, you and me.'