Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  As I lay next to her, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that she was pretending to be sick so that she didn't have to stay with me. But that didn't make any sense. If she didn't want to be with me, why come and see me in the first place? If there was somewhere else she wanted to go, all she had to do was to say so and I'd go with her. It couldn't be that she wanted to sleep in Sunan's room, because she said it was a slum, and my room in the Dynasty costs a thousand baht a night.

  I turned and looked at her. Her thick black hair tumbled over the pillow and she'd pulled the sheets up around her neck. Her body shook as she coughed again and I stroked her shoulder through the sheet.

  ‘I sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That's okay.’ I cuddled up to her and tried to sleep. It was impossible. Every two minutes or so she'd cough. Then she started tossing and turning. I tried to ignore it, but her coughs just got louder and louder. Eventually she sat up.

  ‘Pete, I want go Sunan's room,’ she said. ‘I think I sick.’

  I offered to take her home, but she shook her head. ‘No, I want you to sleep.’ She slipped off the bed and wrapped a towel around herself. ‘I phone you tomorrow, okay?’

  I watched as she pulled her knickers on under the towel. She turned her back on me and put her bra on over the top of the towel. It always made me the smile the way she became suddenly shy when she got dressed. Being naked never seemed to worry her when we were in bed or making love, but afterwards, of after she'd showered, she insisted on covering up as much as possible. Once she'd fastened the bra she pulled the towel down, turning so that her back was to me. She put on her jeans and shirt before facing me again.

  I got out of bed. ‘I'll go back with you,’ I said.

  Joy shook her head. ‘No. You sleep. I want go alone.’

  I didn't know what to say. Did she mean that she wanted to go alone because there was something there she didn't want me to see. Someone? Or was she being considerate? I couldn't tell, I really couldn't tell, and that's what worried me. If she loved me, why didn't I trust her? And if she didn't love me, why couldn't I tell if she was lying or not?

  She walked over and put her arms around me, then rested her head against my shoulder. I stroked the back of her head. ‘Why can't I come with you, Joy?’ I asked.

  She coughed. ‘Sunan's room very small, Pete. Have many people sleep there. Sunan. Apple. Bird. My cousins. Friends of Sunan.’

  ‘Who's Bird?’

  ‘Brother.’

  ‘Same mother, same father?’

  Joy nodded. Thais have a tendency to be vague about family relationships. Any close male relative was a brother, and even a second cousin could be referred to as a sister. Bird wasn't a name that she'd mentioned before.

  ‘Sunan's room very small and sok-ka-prok,’ she said. Sok-ka-prok. Dirty.

  ‘But I want to see where you stay,’ I said.

  She shook her head determinedly. ‘When I have nice room, you can come stay with me,’ she said. ‘You can stay with me all the time.’ She hugged me, tightly. ‘I go now, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. It was pointless arguing with her. She kissed me on the cheek and I opened he door for her.

  ‘I see you tomorrow, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  She coughed again and waved as she waited for the lift to arrive.

  The next day I got a phone call from Alistair that knocked me for six. The guy who was doing the editing of the London edition had left the company. Apparently he'd been offered a big jump in salary by some American operation and he was only giving Alistair a month's notice. The fact that he had more than double that in holidays owing meant that he left immediately, and that had given the company a major headache. The edition had to be with the printers within the next eight weeks and the guy hadn't exactly been working overtime, and Alistair wanted me to fill the hole. I argued with him for almost half an hour but there was no shifting him. He wanted me to go, and the company wanted me to go. The only one who didn't want to go was me and nobody seemed to be taking any account of how I felt.

  Mind you, after I'd hung up the phone and thought about it, it did make sense. I still had my flat in London, and I knew the city probably better than anyone else in the company. It would have been difficult to throw someone else in at the deep end, so I guess Alistair was doing the right thing. I'd done the first London edition about five years previously, so most of the work would involve updating my own copy. I doubted that it'd take a full two months, though I didn't tell Alistair that.

  I'd arranged to see Joy in Zombie at nine and when I got there she was drinking Heineken with Sunan, Apple and Wan. I told Joy I needed to talk to her and we went to a German restaurant down the road from Nana Plaza. She sat and listened as I explained that I had to go back to England to work on the guide book.

  She reached out and held my hands. ‘You not come back?’

  ‘Of course I'll be back,’ I said. ‘Two months, that's all. Maybe not as long as that.’

  ‘I want come with you,’ she said.

  ‘Impossible,’ I said. I would have loved to have taken her with me, but it would have taken months to arrange. Thai girls generally have a bad reputation with immigration authorities. It's partly because so many go abroad to work as hookers, but also a high percentage of marriages between farangs and Thais end badly. The embassies don't make it easy for Thai girls to get visas. They have to have a sponsor, they have to show that they are gainfully employed and have money in the bank, and that they have family. Basically, they have to prove that they'll be coming back to Thailand. It would take three or four months, and Alistair wanted me in London by the end of the week. Even if I applied for a visa that day, I'd be back in Bangkok before her application was even considered, never mind approved. According to Big Ron there were people who could arrange it, for a ‘fee’ of twenty thousand baht or thereabouts, but even that would take several weeks.

  ‘I'll telephone you every day,’ I promised. ‘And I'll write to you.’

  ‘And I write to you every day,’ she said. She held my hands tightly. ‘Pete, I not want you go.’

  ‘And I don't want to go, but I have to. It's work.’

  Her lower lip trembled. ‘I think you forget me.’

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I'll never forget you, Joy.’

  ‘When you go?’

  ‘Two days.’

  Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘I think you not love me any more.’

  I moved around the table so that I could sit next to her and hold her hands. I told her that she was the only one that I loved and that there was nothing for her to worry about.

  ‘What you want me do, Pete?’

  I said that I wanted her to go back to Surin and stay with her father until I returned to Bangkok.

  ‘Okay, I do for you,’ she said. ‘I get bus tomorrow.’

  I kissed her on the cheek. ‘Don't worry,’ I said.

  ‘What I do for money?’ she asked.

  I told her I'd give her ten thousand baht before I went and I'd send her another ten thousand baht in a month.

  ‘I have good idea,’ she said. ‘You can give me two months money now. Then maybe I can do business in Surin.’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Maybe buy something. Then sell.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She shrugged. ‘Shampoo. Clothes. I can buy Bangkok and sell Surin. Make profit.’

  I thought about it for a while, then shook my head. ‘I know you, Joy. If I give you two months money today, you'll spend it all tomorrow. Then you'll have no money. Better I send it to you when I get to London.’

  For a moment I thought she was going to be angry at me, but then her face broke into a grin. She began to laugh.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  She gripped my arm with both hands and rocked backwards and forwards as she laughed. ‘Pete, you know me too well,’ she said. ‘You know what I do.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. When you have, you spend. If you have ten baht, you spend t
en baht. If you have a thousand baht, you spend that.’

  She laughed even louder and people at other tables turned around to look at her. She put her hands over her mouth and tried to stifle her giggles.

  ‘What time do you want to go tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Have many buses to Surin. Ten o'clock. Midnight.’

  ‘Which one do you want to get?’

  ‘Midnight VIP bus, I think.’

  ‘Okay. We'll come here tomorrow and have dinner, and I'll give you ten thousand baht.’

  ‘Thank you, Pete,’ she said, and brushed my neck with her lips. ‘Thank you for everything you give me.’

  We went back to my room at the Dynasty Hotel and this time there was no coughing fit after we'd made love. She'd stayed the whole night, her arms wrapped around me as if she was scared that I'd be the one to disappear.

  ALISTAIR

  I wasn't being completely honest with Pete when I told him that he was the only one who could sort out the problems we were having with the London edition. There were plenty of guys we could have sent in, but I recommended Pete because I thought it would do him good to get out of Thailand for a while. I'm not saying he was going the same way as Lawrence, but I just had the feeling that the place was starting to get to him. He was meeting all his deadlines, just about, but his work didn't have the same flair. His prose was flat, it was as if he was going through the motions and when I spoke to him about it he got all defensive. I figured a few months back in England would do him the world of good.

  He kept talking about his girlfriend, Joy. Joy did this, Joy did that, and he didn't seem to be ashamed of the fact that she was a dancer in a go-go bar. I can't imagine anyone in Hong Kong admitting that their girlfriend was a dancer. They'd be too embarrassed. Pete kept saying that she didn't go with customers anymore, but even so. I mean, she was a hooker, effectively, and he was talking about her as if she were the girl he was going to marry.

  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 mac
hines 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.