A Woman of Bangkok

by Jack Reynolds

  The next few days were sheer agony. I had gone to Vilai’s house planning to dispense with her but I was now distraught with concern about her fate. I moved to a new hotel so that Samjohn wouldn’t be able to find me. Every day I went to that lane to see if she’d come back. The first two mornings the Python answered the door but she would tell me nothing. She just made fun of my concern for Vilai and tried to get me to transfer my interest to herself. On the third morning she refused to open the door. ‘Go ’way,’ she shrilled from inside: ‘I sick and tire’ of you come every day. If you not go quick, I call policeman come …’

  Every night I made a round of the night-haunts. The Hoi Tien Lao, Chez Eve, La Roulette, Salathai, the Champagne Bucket—I even took in the Bolero one night, though I knew it was the forlornest hope of all. And every day I lunched at the Singsong Lounge—that place where I’d been with Dick the day her son was killed. Each day I’d stay there for hours, drinking and drinking until the swingdoors swam before my eyes—for I’d renounced my renouncement of alcohol the minute I’d lost her. But although a good many Bolero girls came in, including once the Black Leopard, I never saw Vilai.

  The nights were absolute hell. Yet really I don’t know when it was worst—tossing on my bed in the small hours, tormented by hideous visions, or walking restlessly through the burning streets by day. In the visions I would see Vilai floating face-downwards in the river with the back of her skull a bloody pulp—Vilai being beaten up by naklengs, the sort of bandits who will kill anyone for a few tics—Vilai imprisoned in some unspeakable dive at Koh Sichang in the mouth of the Chao Phya river. There was no foundation for any of these dreams except an overturned stool in her room a few nights before, yet to me they were as real as established facts. They made it impossible for me to sleep, and with the first light each day I’d be out of the hotel, peering into every shop, pushing my way through congested markets and crooked alleys, swivelling to catch the faces in every passing bus, tramping, tramping until I could hardly stand. And all the while, of course, at the back of my mind, sapping my resolution, was the knowledge that this was madness, and madness without any method to it. Scouring the streets like this I could light on her by luck only. I could pass within a few feet of her, straining after some other woman whose hair or figure or walk was almost the same, and simply not see her …

  On the third day, Saturday, I engaged a room at my old hotel and waited for her to turn up as she had done regularly before on the Saturday afternoons when I was in town. She didn’t come, and at seven in the evening I left.

  On Sunday night at nine I phoned to Arun to find out if by any chance she’d appeared that day. She hadn’t.

  That hotel idea had been my last hope. I was sure that, if she’d still been in need of help, still in Bangkok, and still at liberty to come to me, she would have sought me out there. But she hadn’t done so, and that meant one of three things. She could be dead, or she could be in captivity (either legal or otherwise), or she’d decided that I couldn’t help her any more. Whichever way it was, the affair was over.

  That night I came to terms with this fact. There were two paths open to me. I could still stay around, hunting for her, without a job, without money, without proper papers, dodging the police, combing the alleys of Bangkok and the tiniest hamlets in the forests, driven on by despair, refusing to give in, not because I had any hope left but because if I gave in I would be finished. But that way lay madness and the utter waste of a life. Vilai just wasn’t worth it. I loved her but I knew that much. In fact I knew that much because I loved her …

  Or I could go home. At times I flinched at the thought. Everyone knew I’d come out on a three-year contract; seeing me home so soon they’d know I’d failed again. No doubt my mother would shut herself up in her room again to weep over another mess, while my father, locked out from her, would wander about the house, constantly knocking out his empty pipe and putting it back empty into his mouth again. Andy would be all ‘I-told-you-so’s’—the younger brother too was returning defeated from abroad; he’d shore up his ego on it—‘nobody can make good abroad now …’ And what would be the reactions of Sheila and Lena and Slither and the rather obnoxious Denny? They’d all shake their heads over me, I was sure: even Lena and Slither.

  But success in business wasn’t everything. And success in life hadn’t much to do with just holding down a job. In fact success in life had nothing whatever to do with your paid occupation. It consisted more of winning battles over yourself, private battles that nobody else had any inkling of …

  And that night I’d won such a battle. For all my inclination had been to throw myself away for Vilai’s sake. But I’d decided to do the hard thing for once—go home and start a new life. It was a sensible decision rather than an emotional one. And it was the first such decision I’d ever made in my life. It showed I was growing up …

  The next morning, Monday, I went to the office. Ignoring the chatter of girls and typewriters on the left I pushed open the half-doors on the right. Samjohn was dictating to Verchai. He didn’t even start when he saw me. He just went on with his dictating, leaving me standing awkwardly by the door. When the letter was finished he told Verchai to go and type it—‘and bring it back the minute it’s done so I can sign it,’ he called after her. Then he crushed the stump of his cigar into a full ashtray. ‘Now, Joyce. About time you showed up, young man. We’ve booked you B.O.A.C. You fly tomorrow night at nine. And meanwhile …’

  They kept my nose to the grindstone that day, for besides all the formalities with passport and air-tickets I had a lot of routine work to clear up in the office. It was pretty late when I got back to the hotel and I was tired out. I ordered a stuffed omelette flavoured with curry and a bottle of Green Spot and toyed with them without enthusiasm. Then I lay down on the bed and tried to read the book on porcelains. It was pretty dull, and I’d almost bored myself to sleep when I suddenly remembered my mail. Verchai had given it to me in the morning but I just hadn’t had time to read it. I got up and got the letters out of my shirt pocket.

  There were four altogether—three from England and one with a Thai postage stamp on it. I recognized the spidery, wayward handwriting on the latter at once—Dan’s. What in hell had he got to write about? I put his letter aside and glanced at Lena’s, my mother’s, and Slither’s, first.

  They gave me an uncanny feeling that I was already back at home although I was still half the world away. Nothing in those lives seemed to have been violently altered; all three people were still jogging placidly along, absorbed in the same old interests which had absorbed them a year ago. Lena devoted two pages to her cats and the movies. As for Slither, he was in mourning over the first match of the season: ‘Gripes, they wiped the floor with us, 45-27.’

  And then there was my mother’s parish chronicle. She’d had the usual winter anxieties over my father’s chest. The last two Sundays one of the diapason pipes of the organ had begun to syphon halfway through Father’s sermon; Mr. Butt the organist said he couldn’t understand it, but she herself didn’t trust that Crookshank boy who was blowing these days, no knowing what he got up to in the organloft; he was supposed to come out for the sermon but often he didn’t … So it went on for three pages. The real news was left to the last. ‘I suppose you must have heard by now that Andy and Sheila have separated,’ she wrote in a calm postscript. (Who in hell did she think would have told me?) ‘Sheila became more impossible than ever after she had her miscarriage, I believe. I never could understand what you two boys saw in that young lady. I always thought she was an uppish young madam. Well now she is a typist in London and Andy has had to hire a land girl. He does not say much about it, but I think on the whole he is happier these days …’

  It was all too far off to mean much. I picked up the letter from Dan. ‘And what have you got to say for yourself, Daniel?’ I muttered to myself. I expected another lecture. But it turned out to be the newsiest missive of the lot.

  Dear Joyce,

  I have
been thinking about the last letter I wrote to you and I want to ask your forgiveness. I wrote it under the stress of strong emotion and as I recall it I was much ruder than I had any right to be. Please forgive me if you can. I shall be glad to see you if ever you come to my part of Siam.

  I am now in the deep South of this country, in a small amphur near Songkhla where I expect to spend the rest of my life. I am hoping to start a leprosarium here—in fact, I have already started in a small way. I have land and syringes and a case of Chaulmoogra oil and even three lepers! The main thing now is to get some land cleared so that I can put up a few preliminary buildings and start growing vegetables. I also plan to plant rubber. My aim is to make a self-supporting community of about 250 people in 3–5 years.

  My father has staked me with a very substantial sum and I’m trying to get various UN agencies interested in my project. Meanwhile I’m ready to accept contributions from any source including individuals. (NB. This is a hint. I’m a shameless beggar!)

  For the first month I was down here entirely on my own, but for the last two days I have had a companion. You will never guess who it is, so I will tell you—our mutual friend Miss V.!!! Yes, the other day I was just sitting on a log, burning the tails of some leeches in an effort to make them withdraw their heads from my ankles, when I looked up—and there she was! From the start of course she has always shown a keen interest in my project, and in fact the last time I was in Bangkok she promised to donate ten thousand ticals to the cause. But it appears that a partner in some business deal failed her and she couldn’t produce the money. But she produced herself—and I think she is going to be infinitely more helpful to me than baht 10,000!

  I wanted to stop and consider what I’d already read, but I had to go racing on.

  … As you doubtless know, Miss V. has been deeply dissatisfied with her life in Bangkok ever since the death of her son. I have often suggested to her that she might be able to find consolation for her loss in devotion to the welfare of the poor or sick on some such project as mine. I never specifically suggested my project, as it is so very tentative at present. But now she has arrived here she seems to be delighted with my place. She wants to stay here and act as my interpreter and perhaps business manager, she says. We haven’t arranged anything definite yet—I have told her she needs at least a month here to see how she likes the work—and me! Anyway, at present she’s living in the hut I had just finished building for myself. (The three lepers have built me a new one of leaves.) She won’t go anywhere near the lepers yet—she is dreadfully afraid of catching leprosy and being disfigured—but she has cooked me some wonderful meals. (I have been living on bananas and coconuts, mostly.) Tonight she has gone to Hadyai. I’m sure you have heard of that place—it’s the very gay town where all the rubber men go to throw away their money whenever they make any—but it also happens to be an excellent shopping centre. It is just over 30 miles away and she has gone in by bus. I expect her back tomorrow morning with all sorts of things to make her hut a bit more comfortable. She is also going to look into the possibility of buying a Landrover or some such vehicle: as she points out (and I agree), we should be independent of the buses, which run very infrequently and break down every 5 or 6 miles. I can’t tell you, Joyce, what a tremendous fillip the arrival of this lady, and her obvious confidence in my project, has given to me. I didn’t realize it before, but now she has gone to Hadyai tonight I do—I was lonely and frightened here when I was on my own. But I cannot write any more as it is now 10 p.m. and I have to be up at dawn to get on with the construction work. If ever you need any exercise, come down here and we will put you on to felling trees or grubbing up roots! (I enclose map of how to get here from Hadyai junction.) I myself will be delighted to see you at any time, and so no doubt will Miss V., who was speaking very generously about you only last night.

  In haste, but with all best wishes.

  Dan

  ‘She’s fooling him.

  ‘She’s cottoned on to it at last—the silly bastard really has dough and she’s gone down there to batten on to a good thing. Like those damn’ leeches that get inside his socks. But he’ll never singe her behind in an effort to make her let go. He’ll enjoy having her feed on him.

  ‘He’s a silly sucker. She’s an unscrupulous bitch. And I’m a goddamned idiot.

  ‘God damn it, I’ve been driving myself distracted, believing she’d come to some ghastly end. Fool, idiot, crackpot! A woman like her never comes to a violent end. She knows too damn’ well how to look after herself. She always leaves the sinking ship just as a raft floats by.

  ‘She’s sitting pretty. But I’m sunk.’

  … Suddenly I began to laugh. All the time I’d been reading Dan’s letter a great wave of relief had been welling up inside me, and now it broke and swept all my bitterness away. I laughed and laughed, almost happily. Vilai was off my hands. There was no need to worry about her any more. She’d done better for herself than ever I could have done for her with all my striving. She was secure—at least until she got the urge to move on again.

  For of course she’d never stick it out for the rest of her life, living in a hut in the forest, surrounded by lepers, and thirty miles from the nearest dance-hall. Even if Dan provided a car, as no doubt he would.

  Once, before she’d ever met Dan, describing the only sort of man she could possibly love, she’d described him. A man who respected her for what she was, a man who wasn’t forever importuning her to leap into the nearest bed with him …

  But no, I refused to believe that Dan was her man. That twerp! One day in the not too distant future he’d wake up to find her hut empty. No doubt he’d worry himself sick about her fate then, just as I’d worried myself sick about it during the last week. But that would be his grief, not mine. This night she was safe. For the next few weeks, while the memory of her was still sore, I could console myself with that thought. ‘She’s safe. There’s no need to worry about her right now. Maybe she’s even profiting from her life in the jungle with Dan—not merely as his business manager.’

  Meanwhile, gradually the poignancy of the memory of her would decrease. New scenes, new interests, new experiences, would pile up in the forefront of my mind. Steadily they’d push her backwards into the shadows. Of course, I’d never entirely forget her, any more than I’d entirely forgotten Sheila. Once in a while I’d jerk up in my bed in dismay: ‘But what on earth happened to her in the end?’ It would be a passing shock, though. I’d fall back on my pillows again. ‘For that matter, what happened to Lena? To the girls in Denny’s car? To Ratom? To the air hostess at Karachi?’

  At six the next evening all the Thais on the office staff—the three girls, Somboon, and Windmill, who has returned from the Northeast only that afternoon—entertain me at a farewell feast. They invite Frost too. They ask me where I’d like to go, and I choose a place as far as possible away from any of Vilai’s old haunts—the Happy Bar just outside Lumphini Park. We sit on the terrace enjoying the little gusts of cool air that come off the lotus-filled canal. The food is first-class—raw pork with toasted peanuts, my favourite horse piss eggs, beef cooked in oyster oil, a tongue-skinning prawn salad, frogs’ legs, and chicken fried with mint, garlic and chilli—and as I haven’t eaten a square meal for many days I pitch in with relish. Not much is said about the reasons for my departure, but what is said is good for me to hear. Windmill is spokesman. ‘The firm too stric’,’ he declares. ‘Every man must fall in love sometime. And when he in love he like mad. But never mind. He soon recover. No man can stay in love more than a few weeks. Before you meet that girl, you work very good. And I think in about one month more, you can work very good again. Mr. Samjohn should give you holiday one month—that plenty. But he silly to send you home.’ He chewed a lump of raw pork. ‘I think one thing very important about you—all the Thai people like you—’

  ‘—Especially Verchai,’ shouts Somboon, already a little drunk.

  Emphatic protest from Verchai, whom all present
know to be an intense admirer of Frost. Cheers and hearty endorsement from all the rest of us, including Frost.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to make a speech,’ Windmill goes on, but as this is the phrase with which he always does begin one, he is hooted down and two more bottles of beer are ordered.

  They all go to the airfield to see me off. Frost drives the Riley, with Windmill and Somboon in front, and the three girls and me in the rear. At the airport we have more drinks and sweetmeats. Verchai, as the office’s leading lady, presents me with a very handsome fountain pen. ‘We want to give you lighter and cigarette case,’ she says, ‘but you no smoke. So we give you this. You like?’ I only nod in reply. I am still feeling weak and emotional—disgracefully close to tears …

  We leave the formalities to the last minute and arrive at the barrier only just in time. I shake hands with the men and cheered on by them kiss Verchai and the taller of the other two girls—but the third shyly eludes me and gives me a Thai salute instead. Then I shake hands with Windmill and Somboon again and turn away, a lump in my throat. Frost strikes up ‘For heez’ and the whole damn’ posse of them join in ‘a jolly good fell-low …’ Now my eyes are stinging. I swing back and give Windmill a belt on his fat paunch, make another playful feint at the shy girl. And then, to the relief of the ticket-inspector, I stumble past him …

  The last time I was here I was on my way to Chiengmai with Vilai, for our moneymoon …

  I walk with the rest of the damned across the sward to our tumbril that is glinting silver in the moonlight. The refined accents of the air hostess make my own language sound foreign after months of hearing it mangled in less precious ways. She leads me to my seat and I strap myself in like a baby in his pram. The door slams shut; the red light comes on; the plane begins to tremble slightly as one after another the engineers are started up. And then we begin to trundle through blackness to the end of the runway. There they will rev up each engine in turn, then all four engines in concert. And the next time the engines roar, it will be for the take-off. We’ll hurtle across the field, lift, dip, lift with more assurance, and then go rumbling up into the utter blackness between the invisible earth and the pinpoint stars …