‘Yes, plenty. We’ve seen barking deer, gibbons by the dozen, snakes of course, a lizard as big as a crocodile, a young bear, Himalayan, I think—it was black with a creamy-white bib—and once, near Dejudom, one of the greater cats—’
‘What d’you mean by that? A tiger?’
‘No, it wasn’t a tiger. No stripes. We didn’t get a very long look at it. We came round this bend and there it was, bang in the middle of the road, about a hundred yards ahead. It gave us one look, then it just—sailed into the jungle—you never saw such a leap. It was breathtaking. I only wish I knew what animal it really was. My guess is a panther or—or a leopard—’
‘Leopard!’ He laughed sourly. ‘No leopards upcountry in Siam, so far as I know. You have to go to the capital to find them.’
My heart was beating painfully. ‘You mean—those two girls at the Bolero?’
‘I mean those old bags.’ There was utter disdain in his voice and I looked at him with hatred. ‘I saw the White one only my last night in Bangkok,’ he was saying. ‘Leastways, it was hardly night any longer; it was about five o’clock in the morning by then. She was in a hell of a bloody state. Drunk and staggering, crying, clonking people right and left—’
‘Where—was this?’
‘Outside the Champagne Bucket. I never saw such a mess. Ruddy drunken virago—’
‘What happened to her, do you know?’
‘How the hell should I? You don’t think I went up and offered her my arm, do you? I like my dames a little less well reamed out than she is.’ He poured himself more poison. ‘She’s a real hard case, if ever there was one.’
‘Some people say she has her good points.’
‘Yes, and how right they are!’ He shouted with laughter. ‘I know a couple of good points she’s got myself … But I bet they’re the only two good points she has got.’ His amusement smouldered on for a minute, then he asked, ‘Is she a friend of yours? You look as if you wanted to blub.’
I pulled myself together. ‘Hell, no. Leopards are too big game for me. I prefer cats.’
I waited for the cock crow, but it didn’t come. At least, not until six hours later. I was still awake even then, and completely distraught.
After that evening I’d had to face the truth: all my hopes and dreams were nonsense. There could never be a reformed, domesticated Vilai living with me in a bungalow with bougainvillaea round the door: the dream was too futile to be indulged in any more.
From that moment my thoughts had been in a complete hubbub. Half of me wanted to dash straight back to Bangkok but the other half had only sneered. ‘Why? What d’you think you could do? You’ve tried before and she wouldn’t let you. A man of any spirit …’ and so on.
Still the other half of me wouldn’t be quelled. ‘All right, I’m in love with a whore. She needs me too. I’m probably the only genuine friend she has in the world. Her life is hideous with sorrows and suffering. She tries to make it bearable through licentiousness.’ It was when I had reached this point in her defence once that I stumbled on that phrase. ‘But her licence is only—pathetic licence. It’s not like most licentious people’s—pernicious.’ I remember I’d added a wry comment to myself. ‘And I hope this isn’t just poetic fallacy …’
This battle, between commonsense and lust, had been going on incessantly since that night in Mukdahan. My work had suffered. My temper had gone to pieces. I’d hardly slept in three weeks. And I’d taken to drinking more and more …
The trip dragged wearily on. Nakorn Panom, where the mountains of Vietnam, seen across the mighty Mekong River, look as if they had been copied off a Chinese scroll … Sakol Nakorn, on the banks of a large rippling lake … Udorn, all dust and bustle … Loey, a Laotian centre at the end of a vile road … Khon Kaen, where I bought some bamboo pipes and tried in vain to learn one of the speedy, wheedling, syncopated local melodies … Eventually we came to Korat again, our last stop before Bangkok.
We had dinner with Boswell and Prosit, and as we left the restaurant the latter hailed a samlor. I protested: ‘It’s only a few yards to the hotel. I can walk …’
‘Hotel?’ He looked amazed. ‘Not go hotel. Go see your friend.’
‘What friend?’
He puzzled that out for a minute, then burst out with his cackling laugh and caught me in the ribs with his elbow. ‘She luff very much,’ he lisped. ‘Many time ask how long you come Korat.’
‘You mean—Ratom? Asked about me?’
‘Your friend.’ He sketched her torso with lithe hands. ‘She luff very much. She say many time.’
The samlor was even then swerving round the statue of Surat-nari. I should have bawled ‘lew kwah’—go right—for the hotel. I said nothing. We went straight ahead, straight towards Chakri Road.
Ratom wasn’t on hand. Prosit, apparently expecting to find in me the easy adaptability of his own race, tried to get me interested in a buxom type who was alleged to be new to the game but of unparalleled virtuosity; but her obvious distaste for the proposed union, coupled with my distaste for her particular brand of beauty, put me in timely mind of my vows. I made a fresh effort to escape, but Gold Teeth told me she’d ordered mekong and savouries, and while we were waiting for it to arrive she encouraged a girl in a white blouse and a neat blue skirt to sit on my lap. The costume, which is worn by office-girls in Bangkok, gave an air of respectability to the proceedings, and moreover the female flesh spoke through her silks and my drills to my male flesh with unexpected force. The girl was very small, with dainty features, and a very pleasant scent in her hair. I didn’t want to go ahead. But it was weeks since I’d touched a girl. And what was the use of being faithful to Vilai week in and week out? She didn’t expect it—she’d told me that herself …
So soon I found myself ascending by Jacob’s ladder to a temporal ersatz heaven. And many are the mansions in Heaven, but it was to Ratom’s usual room she led me. The girl went to fetch the implements of her trade. Gold Teeth strolled in and sat down on the bed beside me. I fumbled her a bit by way of flattery and she reacted like a ticklish virgin from the same motive. While she was straightening her hair again I asked her how Ratom was.
‘She’s all right. She told me to give you this if you came.’
She pulled a photograph out of the top of her slip. I was quite startled by it: I’d forgotten how handsome Ratom was. ‘Beats Miss Thailand hollow,’ I exclaimed.
She turned it over, and written on the back in English letters that looked queerly like Thai script were the words, ‘To Raj, with loving from the derest lady Ratm.’
I was rather moved. ‘Ratom’s a first-class girl.’
‘Yes. Why don’t you take her away with you? She is tired of this life. She’s had seven years—two with me. We’ve never quarrelled once. If she could better herself, I’d let her go—’
‘But I have no house. All the time I travel, staying in hotels—’
‘Never mind about that. She often stays in hotels too. She likes you, and I know you like her. She would go with you everywhere, give you a good time, and she wouldn’t want too much money, not like Bangkok girls—’
Had Windmill been talking to her?
Before I could say any more my girl returned. Gold Teeth gave me a smile and left us. But there was no joy in betraying Vilai. We had a most perfunctory session. No dalliance. No endearments. No words at all. And all the time I imagined I could hear Ratom’s derisive chuckles behind the mosquito net …
But of course, I overpaid the girl—I always overpaid them. She didn’t say thanks but she leaned against me gratefully for a moment. Stowing the extra note in her skirt-top she said, ‘I need money badly. I am not a prostitute. I am a graduate nurse. But the hospital wages are very low, and I must pay two hundred tics every month for my new bicycle. So I spend my spare time here—’
Four days later we returned to Bangkok. I dropped Windmill at his house and drove straight to the hotel. It was about five o’clock—and who should be at the gate, just turning
from the Indian doorkeeper with a disappointed look, but my only true love? Her face lit up, and so I’m sure did mine. But she was ‘sick’ again—‘I always sick when you come Bangkok, darling; I not know why.’ Before long we fell out seriously over the usual subject—money. She said the Chiengmai trip had been put off so long she’d used up the original advance and she needed another, since she was behind with her rent, and also she fancied a durian fruit, and if I gave the boy a hundred tics he could bring one straight away, and she’d eat it before she left. I told her heatedly she only wanted my money and not me, so damn’ well clear out, and she said yes of course she only needed my money, for she could have the other thing forty times a day if she wanted, and what did I amount to, I was only a low-grade worker in a very insignificant concern, but she was very high pipple, she was like Hitler and Tlueman and Ivanhower. At the height of the engagement there was a knock at the door and thinking it was only the boy and glad of any interruption I threw it open. There stood Mrs. Samjohn, with a smile rapidly evaporating from her desiccated face.
No wonder either. Vilai had on nothing but a towel and her earrings and I was in my underpants.
I slammed the door in her face and threw on a shirt, shorts and sandals. She was just getting into the Riley when I caught up with her. I noticed that she was genuinely flushed under the heavily powdered artificial flush she always wore. The wrinkles round her mouth were set as if carved in rock.
‘I’m sorry about just now,’ I babbled, wondering if even that was being too specific. ‘I thought it was the boy—’
‘Never mind, never mind.’ She seemed as apologetic as I—as if I’d caught her eavesdropping. ‘Mr. Samjohn said you were expected home today. I happened to be passing. I thought if you weren’t too tired after your journey you might like to come to the House for a bite to eat—’
‘I would indeed.’
‘But you aren’t dressed and—’ She looked at her watch, and I knew her problem was, not how long it would take me to change my attire, but how long it would take me to get rid of my company.
‘But you needn’t wait for me, you know. I have the jeep here, so I can get out to the House under my own steam—’
I saw that this solution to the problem only increased her grimness. She’d been hoping it would prove insoluble. But she was very well-bred. She said, ‘In that case I’ll be going and we’ll expect you at—say—seven? Seven-fifteen?’ She sounded about as effusive as a dead cod looks.
I returned to my room, torn between a desire to laugh and vexation.
Vilai had dressed. ‘Who she?’
‘That’s my boss’s wife, darling.’
‘Why she come here hotel? She come before?’
‘Yes, once or twice.’
‘Oh. Reely. She come before, see you.’ Suddenly she flared. ‘Why she do that? She in luff wiss you?’
‘Don’t be such a twerp, Vilai. She’d old enough to be my grandmother.’
‘Old make no differnunt. Old girl haff mutss money can haff nice young man if she want … You be careful, Wretch. You haff ’nusser girl, very bad luck for you.’
‘Why, what would you do to me?’
‘Maybe I not do nussink. But anyone do bad to me, very soon he die, I sink. ’Cause I good girl. The God like me very mutss. Anyone not good me, like I good them, he kill.’
‘Bunk. If the God liked you, he’d find a new job for you. Has He done that?’
‘No. No shob yet. Doctor say must wait maybe one more munss.’
‘Doctor? What’s he got to do with it … Vilai, you aren’t—really sick—are you?’
‘You know I sick. I ask you.’
‘Vilai, Vilai!’Another milestone on the road to hell! ‘How long have you had it?’
She was very cool. ‘Today make t’ree day. Tomollow OK.’
I realized that we’d been misunderstanding each other but I continued suffering from shock.
She went on, ‘I go see mutss, mutss doctor. All say same. Must wait one more munss, then will get shob, good more batter than Bolero—’
So by ‘doctor’ she meant fortune-teller. Exasperated I cried, ‘But aren’t you making any effort to get a new job now? Are you just waiting for it to fall into your lap—?’
She said, ‘I try many place. But the girls all jealous me. They not want me go their place. They ask manager, he giff Vilai shob their place, they must all go ’way. ’Cause they know if manager giff me shob their place, man not want go wiss them any more, only want go wiss Vilai.’ She laughed happily.
‘And so now you’re just walking the streets.’
‘Neffer.’ She was hurt and indignant. ‘I Leopard. I neffer haff to walk street in my life. I just stand, one hundred men must want. Old man wiss no here’—(touching her head)—‘young boy not haff pass girl yet—’
I gave that subject up too. You never realize how many pitfalls there are in the English language until you start trying to make a Siamese understand it. I tried another line. ‘I met another Englishman upcountry who knows you. He said he saw you one night outside the Champagne Bucket—’
‘Who he? What he name?’
‘His name’s Keeling.’
‘Killing? I not know that boy. Why you spick him about me? I not want you spick usser man about me. Not nice for me.’
‘What he said about you wasn’t nice for me, either. He said you were sozzled and crying and hitting people—’
‘Ah, he lie to you. Must not trust pipple everysing they say, darling. Many pipple not good. I hate very mutss. All time they jealous me, ’cause I very high girl, I not low like them … Why you do?’ (I was putting on long trousers.) ‘You go out now?’
‘Yep.’
‘Where you go?’
‘I’m going out to dinner with Mrs. Samjohn.’
‘Who he?’
‘Mrs. S.—the woman who was here just now. My boss’s wife.’
She was perturbed. ‘Why you want go her house? She haff huss-band?’
‘Of course she has. I keep telling you he’s my boss.’ Perhaps that term wasn’t known to her. ‘He’s manager where I work, darling. It’s he that pays me my money.’
‘Yes, she haff very mutss money, I sink. I see her. She haff gold here, here, here.’ She touched her fingers, wrists, neck and ears. ‘Too many pipple haff plenty money, plenty gold. Only Vilai neffer haff enough. All the time Vilai work, work, work—like she slav’, I sink, but she neffer make any money …’ I refused to rise to this fly. ‘You giff me money today, darling?’—wheedlingly.
‘I’ve told you already, I’ve got none on me.’
‘I look your wallet?’
‘You still don’t trust me even now, do you?’
‘I trust, darling, but I just want look see.’
Knowing there was nothing in it, I threw it on the bed. She pounced on it like a real leopard on its prey. But a quick search showed that there was no notes. She was just on the point of closing it when she came on Ratom’s portrait, which I’d forgotten. That really caused a sensation. She tore it out and devoured it with her eyes. ‘Who this girl?’
‘Which?’ I glanced over my shoulder with nonchalance. ‘Oh her. She’s a friend of mine. Upcountry.’
‘Why she giff you pickser?’
‘Why does any girl give a chap her picture? Because she likes me, I expect.’
‘Why she like you? You giff her money?’ She turned the snap over and saw the inscription. ‘What all this?’
I took the photograph away from her and screwed up my eyes over the writing. ‘It says, “To my darling Reg, with all my love, from his one true sweetheart.”’
She was outraged. But with an effort she controlled her fury. She said gravely, ‘I ask you before, Wretch—you must be careful. Country-girl very bad girl. She only want your money—’
‘And what the hell else do you want? If I told you I was never going to give you another ruddy penny as long as I live would you ever come to see me again? I’ll answer for you, sweet
heart: NO. You’re utterly incapable of loving anyone but yourself. But this lady’—I looked tenderly at Ratom again before I returned her to the wallet—‘she really loves me. I think if I asked her she’d go to the ends of the world with me—’
‘She tell you that? You not want trust, darling. Many girl haff very sweet mouse but not spick truce. All the time very hard here.’ She touched her heart. ‘I not like that sort girl, darling. My mouse not sweet, but spick only truce. I say I come see you, I effer break my plomiss?’
‘Yes, once.’
‘No, neffer.’ I opened the door while she put the finishing touches to her hair. ‘I want you giff me pickser that girl.’
‘What for? She gave it to me.’
‘She no good for you, darling. She want hurt you—break your heart. I take pickser to temple, I show the God, I ask him this girl very bad, I want he kill—’
‘Bah! What’s she matter to you? She’s only a tabby cat, you’re the mighty Leopard—’
She wouldn’t let me take her anywhere in the jeep. ‘I go samlor.’ Outside in the yard she clung to my arm. Her face was worried. ‘Don’t forget what I ask you, Wretch. Country girl wiss sweet mouse no good for you. You want usser girl beside me, must take that old girl come to hotel just now to see you. She haff many ring, I sink plenty money. And I sink maybe she like you very mutss, ’cause she old and ugly, but you strong and very good look. I sink she giff you anysing you ask, you silly if you not take—’
‘And hand over to you?’ I was bitterly ashamed to be involved in such a conversation. I felt soiled all over, as if I’d fallen into a cesspool. It was a feeling I quite often got when talking to Vilai. Suddenly this woman who to me was so bewitching would speak ‘truce words’—would reveal with brazen honesty the true nature of her mind. And it was always a bitter shock to me, that revelation, when it came. For I was all the time romantically dreaming of lifting her up to my level through the power of my love, but at such moments I realized how foolish the dream was: she had already pulled me down a long way and there was still further to go …
A Woman of Bangkok Page 28