Thai Girl

by Andrew Hicks

  ‘Sounds all right to me. Not a bad life,’ said Samantha defensively, but even Maca was now beginning to get irritated with her.

  ‘No way! The beach workers have the same problems you talk about … new aspirations and no security. Thailand’s changing fast with crazy materialism. It’s all there in the shops even in Ban Phe … televisions, videos, motorbikes, clothes, cosmetics. And the Thai soaps on the telly are showing a new urban life-style, raising expectations sky high. And of course she sees us, the farang always on holiday. Like you, Sam.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re a princess … well dressed and made up, the world at your feet. And we farang never apparently do any work. All we do is sit around drinking and eating the best food, reading trashy novels, and having sex. Unreal! Seeing us, it’s getting much more difficult for a Thai beach worker to accept her limited horizons.’

  ‘So what’s the future for a girl like the waitress, Maca?’ asked Emma.

  ‘I guess she’ll fall for one of the men working here, get pregnant and go home to have the baby. Then she’ll come back to work leaving the child at home with Mum. If he’s a good guy, they’ll register the marriage, he’ll contribute to the child’s upkeep and she’ll be faithful to him. But he may go and work somewhere else and find another girlfriend. So she just keeps on serving food and wiping tables … if the tourist trade doesn’t collapse. There are worse places than Koh Samet, but it’s not much of a life. What do you think, Sam?’

  ‘No … maybe not,’ she said shifting in her seat.

  ‘Of course, many of the girls dream of marrying a farang … which means big money. And they think Europeans make good husbands! How about that, ladies?’ said Maca with a silly grin.

  ‘Sod the men,’ said Samantha, ‘I’m sticking with Nadia.’

  Nobody laughed and Maca and Ben exchanged glances.

  Such evenings go on indefinitely, the warm night, the unlimited alcohol, good food and company giving little reason to leave. More bottles of beer were emptied while the serving girls waited late into the night, their early breakfast shift coming ever closer.

  It was Emma who made the first move to go to bed, followed by the other women.

  ‘Ben, you didn’t let me sleep last night, staying out late with the lowlife, so I’m turning in. Are you coming?’

  Ben looked a little apprehensive.

  ‘Yeah, well soon anyway. Just one more beer.’

  Maca, Chuck, Stig and Ben stayed up into the small hours, gazing dopily into the flame of the oil lamp as they discussed whether Samantha and Nadia were gay. A few hundred yards away in the hut, Emma lay on the hard bed unable to sleep. Thailand was still not the escape from reality she had hoped for and she knew she would soon have to face up to making some serious decisions of her own. She pretended to be asleep when Ben at last blundered clumsily into the hut.

  An hour or two later they were both roughly woken by the storm. An unseasonable squall of rain swept across the island, the wind howling through the trees, causing the tin roof of the hut to crash and strain as if it was about to be ripped away. It was almost morning when the storm subsided and they finally fell asleep.

  8

  In the early hours, the rain pounded on the tin roof of the hut with tropical ferocity. For what little remained of the night, Ben was dimly aware of the hum of the distant generator that supplied power to the resort and of the pounding of the waves, still agitated from the night’s storm. He could hear the drips falling from the trees and running off the eaves onto the ground and could smell the rich scent of wet earth.

  At his home in Haywards Heath the dawn is always silent except for the hum of traffic and the clink of milk bottles. The birds are either too chilled to sing or have been decimated by domestic cats. But Ben was learning that here in Thailand the world wakes up noisily. First are the cockerels, very early and very vocal. The dogs often join in, barking and howling at each other. Then comes a chorus of bird song, including sometimes the distant pulsing cry of a nightjar. Ching-choks, the tiny near-transparent lizards that inhabit every building and climb like Spiderman across walls and ceilings, make a distinctive sound like clicking tongues. An invisible gecko lizard is more intrusive, loudly repeating ‘tukkae, tukkae’ from somewhere under the floor. Happy with the flow of rain water into the hollows, the bullfrogs are in full throat calling their ladies with their bizarre ‘oink-oink, oink-oink’. And as the morning begins to heat up, insects hidden in the trees one by one begin a continuous chorus of high-pitched shrieking.

  Around the huts can be heard the sounds of talking and laughter as the daily routine begins at first light. The workers’ flip-flops slop down the path as their home-made brooms swish away the night’s fall of leaves. After the storm there is much for them to do. Rubbish has blown into the restaurant, chairs are overturned and rotten branches lie scattered over the pathways. Long before the farang surface, they are up and about, having crawled out of their rough wooden huts or from behind the bar where they slept under a table with a mosquito net thrown over it.

  The sleeping farang make no sound, except perhaps an occasional groan. They are on holiday, indulging in a serial hangover. Silently cursing the sounds of the morning that wake them too early, they stay late in bed and so miss the best part of the day. But in a flimsy beach hut, it is hard to stay asleep once the island has begun to stir.

  After his late and alcoholic night, Ben was finally disturbed by the morning noises and by the light pouring in through thin cotton curtains. It was damp and sweaty in the hut and he was feeling seriously dehydrated. He went cautiously out onto the veranda in his sarong and surveyed what he could see of the world. Everything was wet and leafy, the ground dark and sodden, though he was surprised the storm had not done more damage. He was most intrigued by the chickens; red, original chickens, very skinny with long necks and legs, running everywhere like mini-dinosaurs. A bamboo ladder stood against a palm tree where a nesting box kept their eggs safe from the many rangy dogs on the island.

  As he went back into the hut, Emma was just surfacing.

  ‘Christ, you look bleary,’ he said. ‘You okay Emm?’

  ‘Yes, but no thanks to you. Think I need more sleep in this climate, and I’m not sure I’m over the jetlag yet.’

  They threw on their shorts and wandered down to the restaurant, an open-sided building by the reception hut. Breakfast was black coffee, scrambled egg and bacon, toast with butter and jam and a plate of fresh fruit.

  It was a big surprise when Chuck and Maca appeared a few minutes later and joined them at their table.

  ‘Bit early for you guys!’ teased Emma.

  ‘G’day Emma. I like an early brekkie … sets me up for a busy day.’

  ‘So what are you going to do today then?’

  ‘I’m easy Emm, but one thing’s for sure … I’ll be flat out like a lizard drinking.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sitting around doing nothing!’ said Ben scornfully.

  ‘Chill out man,’ droned Chuck.

  ‘Slow down, Ben. Time’s on your side … you’ve got lots of it for once,’ said Maca.’

  ‘Walk the middle path, seek Nirvana.’

  ‘Yes, but how exactly?’ Ben asked, slightly puzzled.

  ‘Well, you get your bathers,’ said Maca, ‘you pick up a book, a bottle of water and sun glasses and you find a deckchair. You sit on it and read the book. Get too hot, you walk to the sea and throw yourself in. Get too hungry, you eat food. Even roll a spliff.’ He filled his mouth with scrambled egg.

  ‘Very droll,’ said Emma finishing the last slice of papaya.

  ‘Anyway, I’m going for a walk,’ said Ben. ‘Want to come, Emm?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m doing it Maca’s way today. Didn’t get much sleep you know.’

  Incapable of doing nothing, Ben had his usual urge to explore his new surroundings. He left the others and walked to the rocks at the end of the bay and across the headland until he could see the next beach through t
he trees. Along the way he passed several Thais selling sweets, cooked food and fruit, carrying their loads in baskets balanced at each end of a bamboo pole and slung across one shoulder. Most were middle-aged women and walked with a rolling gait to handle the weight, the pole flexing with the rhythm of each step.

  Ben stopped one of the fruit sellers and looked in her baskets. There was papaya, pineapple, watermelon, pomelo, mangoes, bananas and coconuts, the soft fruit carefully packaged in white styrofoam trays and covered in cling-film. He chose a coconut and the fruit lady cut its top off and gave him a straw and a plastic spoon to scoop out the soft, unripe flesh. The milk was fresh and cold with a pleasant sweetness; he wondered how anyone could drink cola when this god-given nectar was falling from the trees.

  Returning to Ao Sapporot, he then headed inland and walked up the dusty track towards the dry monsoon forest. Beyond the chalets were the huts of the workers, half hidden in the trees. He was surprised how ramshackle they were and was even more disgusted by the rubbish littered everywhere; polythene wrappers, broken furniture, scraps of timber and plastic, old shoes and tin cans. It looked as if nobody cared that the garbage generated by the tourists was left scattered to the four winds.

  Nearing the workers’ huts, he came across some Thai men squatting on the ground cooking something over a fire. They welcomed him with warm smiles as he approached. Out of curiosity he went closer but could hardly believe what he saw; they were roasting rats. Bamboo sticks had been pushed through the rats’ bodies from nose to tail and the men were slowly charring them in the flames. He tried not to look appalled, though he could not help thinking of the feast he had eaten with the others the night before. One of the men saw him staring at their breakfast.

  ‘Eat mouse. You like?’ he said with a broad smile.

  ‘No thanks, maybe next time,’ said Ben, feeling he had been caught intruding.

  When he got back to the beach, he passed by two European girls in brief bikinis who were having a massage under the trees with some old Thai women. They looked pale and exposed next to the dark-skinned masseuses who were covered up in trousers, long-sleeved shirts and wide-brimmed hats. Further on along the sand, rows of farang were lounging in deckchairs and reading novels, some of the girls lying topless under the pitiless heat of the sun.

  Taking a deckchair from the stack against a tree, he rejoined the others who were sitting more sensibly in a shady place at the top of the beach.

  ‘Hey Emm, you’re looking chilled out,’ he said.

  ‘I’m hot, sweaty and bitten by ants, but yes, chilled out I suppose. Stupid expression.’

  ‘American lingo,’ said Maca.

  Chuck remained unprovoked and looked vacant. Having lit up that morning, he had already found the meaning of life.

  ‘So what did the Pommie explorer find on his travels?’ asked Maca.

  ‘Lots,’ said Ben. ‘Dunno how you can all just sit here.’ He was determined to tell them what he had seen, even if nobody was in the least bit interested. ‘There were these men cooking rats and two gorgeous girls being massaged, and I saw more rubbish than in the whole of Bangkok.’

  ‘Eating rats! How disgusting,’ said Emma. ‘Glad I didn’t see them.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Chuck. ‘Meat’s from dead animals, not supermarkets.’

  ‘But I mean rat! Are they so poor they have to eat rat?’

  ‘Maybe rat’s a delicacy,’ said Maca. ‘Anyway, it’s a bush rat not a sewer rat and country people here eat everything … frogs, snakes, lizards and rats from the paddy fields. The kids go out and collect’em. And there’s crickets, termites and scorpions … and grubs that live in bamboo. You look for the boreholes in the bamboo, cut it with your parang and the inside’s squirming with grubs. You saw them on the stalls outside Nana Plaza … the working girls from Isaan love’em.’

  ‘But I’d never eat stuff like that,’ said Emma.

  ‘Why not?’ Maca demanded. ‘You eat some shonky things out of the sea like oysters and prawns … just as disgusting. Course it’s the aborigines that really know about bush tucker. Witchetty grubs are the best.’

  ‘Then I had a brilliant coconut from one of the fruit sellers,’ persisted Ben. ‘So much milk and the meat’s delicious.’

  ‘Better than buying drinks in cans, making more trash,’ said Chuck. ‘Coconuts are local too.’

  ‘I can see why they like the plastic packaging though … it’s so light. The woman must’ve been half dead carrying the coconuts.’

  ‘Yeah, and have you thought how far she’s walked with all that weight?’ said Maca. ‘They buy the fruit and stuff and put it in those wretched plastic trays, catch the first boat at dawn with two full baskets and walk the length of the island. It’s one hell of a walk, three or four miles. Rocky headlands, roots to trip you up, steep climbs and bloody hot. Then they walk back again.’

  ‘But my coconut lady was all smiles,’ said Ben. ‘They’re tough, these people.’

  ‘It’s the blind fruit seller blows my mind,’ said Chuck. ‘I saw him carrying those baskets last time I was here … he has to walk very slowly, step at a time.’

  ‘Have to hand it to people like that,’ said Maca, ‘not that he’s got any choice.’

  ‘I was surprised to see masseurs on the beach though,’ said Ben. ‘After Bangkok, I thought massage was part of the sex industry.’

  ‘Not always,’ said Maca. ‘Prostitution’s supposed to be illegal so massage is an obvious cover. But Thai massage is straight … Wat Po’s the top training school.’

  ‘Yes, we were surprised to see massage in a temple,’ said Ben.

  ‘The Thais take it very seriously … the masseurs over there’ll be proud of their skills.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be asking those old crones for any extras,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t mind a bit of the Euro-tottie they’re working on though.’

  ‘Go on then,’ said Emma indignantly, glaring at him. ‘Try your luck if you dare.’

  ‘Spoiled for choice,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Don’t mind if I do!’

  Emma frostily changed the subject.

  ‘You know, it’s odd,’ she said, ‘the foreigners wearing so little compared to the Thais. Even the older tourists are in thongs and go topless with their tits bobbing about, but the masseurs on the beach are all covered up. Same as those Thai kids over there.’

  They all turned to look. A group of young Thais were fooling around in the waves, the males in swimming shorts, the girls in shorts and tee-shirts.

  ‘Thai girls are so modest they swim in their clothes,’ said Maca. ‘If you see one here in a brief bikini, she’s probably a hooker hired by the day from Pattaya.’

  ‘Pattaya? That’s the big sex resort, isn’t it,’ said Ben.

  ‘Sodom-on-Sea,’ said Maca. ‘Just your place, eh Ben?’ Ben grinned. ‘And Thai women cover up because they don’t want to go black,’ Maca went on. ‘Beauty means white skin. Dark means peasant working in the fields, Isaan farmers, baan nawk, the back of beyond. Pale’s the colour of urban lifestyle, Chinese money. That’s why they’re so keen to keep out of the sun.’

  ‘Who’s stupid then, the Thais or the farang roasting on the beach? We all complain about the heat but then lie in the sun and risk skin cancer,’ said Emma.

  ‘But Emma, it’s cool getting a tan,’ said Chuck.

  ‘Is it? In the pharmacy in Bangkok next to the tanning lotions, I saw rows of skin whitening creams for the Thais. Guess people want whatever they haven’t got.’

  ‘Yeah, the Thais think we’re mad wanting to sunbathe,’ said Maca. ‘And Thai men seeing foreign chicks half-dressed like bar girls think that means they’re available. Surprises me our women don’t get molested more often.’

  ‘In another culture, you mustn’t give the wrong signals,’ said Emma.

  ‘Good on yuh, Emm. It’s plain offensive going topless and wearing skimpy clothes in town. Don’t know why farang women are so insensitive.’

  ‘Maybe because the
Thais are too tolerant,’ said Chuck. ‘They just smile and take us as we come.’

  There was a pause as they watched the Thais noisily playing in the sea.

  ‘Well, folks, it’s time for a plate of cowpat moo. Anyone peckish?’ asked Maca.

  As they wandered off to eat, they passed the masseuses who were now sitting waiting for customers. ‘Massage, massage,’ they called out, smiling broadly.

  ‘Don’t fancy being mauled by those old biddies,’ said Ben.

  ‘Prefer a topless chick in cargo pants, I suppose,’ hissed Emma under her breath.

  ‘Say na’more!’ said Ben, unabashed.

  Maca heard the exchange.

  ‘Once a bloke, always a bloke,’ he guffawed. ‘Sorry Emma, it’s true … though I’m a feminist kinda guy myself, honest!’ There were loud hoots from Chuck.

  Lunchtime was clouded by the obvious tensions between Ben and Emma, by lack of sleep and by the increasing heat. Eating only made them all hotter and more uncomfortable. Emma was the first to say she was going back to the hut to crash out for a bit.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Emm,’ said Ben.

  ‘Don’t rush,’ she replied icily.

  He followed her a few minutes later and found her lying on the bed facing the wall, a sarong knotted round her waist. She ignored him and said nothing as he sat down beside her. Looking down at the curve of her back and the scarp of her hips and thighs, he ran the tips of his fingers slowly up her spine and into her hair. To his alarm, she turned on him angrily.

  ‘How dare you do that after all the foul things you keep saying in front of me. Don’t you dare touch me!’

  ‘Emm, it’s a siesta. You know what siestas are for,’ he said resentfully.

  Abruptly Emma sat up and faced him, cradling her bare breasts protectively in her folded arms. Briefly distracted by the pink line along her bikini top where she had caught the sun, Ben was totally unprepared for the outburst that followed.