Down Under.

I’m going to fast forward with Arthur. He’s just so bloody boring. Stuck in that shop there were times when Arthur wished he’d stayed in India. Had he really hitch-hiked all the way there with Simon? His passport bore some exotic stamps…Spin Boldak…Amritsar…Panjim. Why had he gone back to England? Because Alice got pregnant that’s why.

Alice got pregnant with Cynthia and a marriage was arranged. Arthur still can’t remember how or by whom. Arthur’s parents probably. They died soon after the wedding when their Standard 8 rolled off a cliff at Dover. They’d been eating egg and cress sandwiches and forgot to put the handbrake on.                                                                     
Alice helped Arthur run the tobacconists, which they inherited. They were not unhappy. Life was measured in newspaper sales, bars of Cadbury’s chocolate, Woodbines, Senior Service, cups of tea. Much TV was watched in the 2-room flat (plus kitchen and bathroom) above the shop. There were occasional picnics to Woburn Abbey and Chessington Zoo. Cynthia grew up, left school at 16, worked in a bank for 6 months but she obviously wasn’t cut out for it. She dyed her hair purple.Pimply young men were knocking on the door at all hours. There were tantrums in the bathroom.

One evening they were watching telly when Cynthia said, ‘You might as well know. I’ve just had an abortion, It’s OK. Done. And I’m going to Australia.’

Stunned silence.

‘But why Cyn….?’

‘To get away.’

‘From Crorley?’ From us?

‘From everything.’

Arthur is tempted to tell Cynthia that there is no getting away.  But he says nothing. Perhaps he just doesn’t want to sound patriarchal.

Anyway Cynthia packed up her Sex Pistols albums and off she went to Australia on the ten pound scheme.

Alice took it badly. She got bigger and bigger and one day she just died. It was tragic. She had been huge towards the end, bloated, unable to get out of bed. Arthur didn’t understand how it happened. He put a lot of the blame on Cadbury’s and the constant barrage of promotional material. Alice couldn’t resist trying all the new products. Too much sugar. She got hooked.

Alice’s health rapidly declined. She died. Some kind of stroke they thought. Not a total surprise. They had to grease her and remove the door-frame so that four strong men could get her downstairs and into an ambulance. Poor woman. Woody Allen might have made a joke out of it but for Arthur it was a turning point. He sat staring at cardboard boxes for a month then he sold the shop to a family from Bangladesh who turned it into a 24 hour proto-mini-market. The funeral was a small affair, just Arthur, an uncle or two, some neighbours.

That left Arthur at a loose end.  Cynthia sent some flowers with an address in Melbourne. He had nothing particular to do he decided to go and visit her.

With a stop over in Bangkok.

Sir Francis Drake Channel.

After a few days of Foxy’s beach party I’m ready for a some peace and quiet. I like Foxy but his place was a bit much for me. Too many boats, too many people. I needed somewhere quieter. I was even thinking of marooning the crew and buggering of somewhere on my own. Perhaps Nyum fancies a little daytrip somewhere? Leave the somtam club in Margaritaville for a while. Do them good.

My idea was to sail back around Tortola and look at some of the smaller islands in the St. Francis Drake Channel. Maybe see if I could spot Oscar’s place from a distance. So that’s what we’re doing.

Very nice round here it is. You can see the attraction for the old pirates and chancers. A lot of those blokes knew they had a date with a rope whatever they did. So why not have a bit of fun? Make your own rules. Help yourself to some loot me hearties. Ha, ha. The Lesser Antilles is just the place for it lads. Lots of unguarded merchant ships moving about and lots of small bays and islands where you can hide a sloop.

Rackham, Dampier, Stede Bonnet, Calico Jack, Bart Roberts and Henry Morgan all sailed through the Sir Francis Drake Channel. Edward Teach alias Blackbeard marooned 15 blokes on Dead Chest Island just over there. Yo, ho, ho. And there’s Norman Island where Robert Louis Stevenson got the idea for Treasure Island or so they say.

Stede Bonnet was a funny character. He’d been a successful planter in Barbados but he must have got bored. Some say he just wanted to get away from his missus. Nobody knew about Pattaya in those days so he bought a ship in Bridgetown and hired a crew. Not the usual pirate way of doing things. Then off he went plundering. But he wasn’t very good at it. Too much the gentleman maybe. He teamed up with Blackbeard for a while but the bugger tried to nick his ship. Stede ended up dangling from a rope in South Carolina.

All those blokes were amateurs beside Sir Francis Drake when it came to piracy. Francis was the biggest pirate of the lot. Thanks to some nifty footwork with QE1 he even got it legalized! Her Majesty gave Francis some impressive looking documents which freed him and the lads to plunder the Spanish Main without needing to feel guilty. Not that they thought twice about it. Frank was always ready to have a go at anything Spanish and the money was good. And Frank knew his ships. He sailed through the Straits of Magellan and did Peru. Takes bottle that does.

He captured treasure galleons off Peru and ambushed the Spanish supply chain in Panama. Ended up with more loot than he could handle. He had to split the proceeds with Liz of course but they both did alright. She invested 1,000 crowns in him and got 47,000 back. Enough to pay off England’s foreign debt and keep the country running for several years. She let Francis keep 10,000 crowns for himself. He bought Buckland Abbey near Plymouth but he didn’t stay there long. He went back to the Caribbean several times and died eventually of fever. He was buried at sea in a lead casket off Nombre de Dios, which was founded by Diego de Nicuesa (the Royal Carver) in 1510.

It’s not easy, living like I do, to keep up with all the major events in the art world. But I try.

Whenever I get a chance I like to check on what Tracey Emin’s up to. It’s a way of keeping up with the Zeitgeist. And Tracey’s been a busy girl it looks like.

You may recall that she was quite upset about the public reaction to the warehouse fire at Saatchi’s. Well who wouldn’t be? Apparently some people sniggered. People can be such Philistines sometimes.

But she didn’t let it get her down. She got to work on a film about teenage girls committing suicide in Margate. I always liked Margate myself. Had a few laughs there.

Then the bosses at UKTV Gold asked Tracey to make a piece after they heard ‘The Bill’ was her favourite program. So she stitched a piece called ‘Tracey Emin Loves The Bill’. You can see it in the ITV1 studio canteen.


And guess who just bought one of Tracey’s creations?  Posh Spice that’s who. No it’s not an old bed it’s a nice neon heart for David. Set her back about 80,000 quid. Money well spent I’d say.

A lot of the smaller islands round here are privately owned. I could see Oscar’s but the house must have been on the other side. Didn’t feel like visiting him today anyway. I’ll go tomorrow maybe. Or the day after. 

Foxy's, Jost Van Dyke.

The island of Jost Van Dyke is named after a Dutch pirate. We headed round to Foxy’s beach and found a lot of boats already there. The moorings were all taken so we dropped anchor in the sand. You have to be careful where you drop your hook in BVI these days because they try to protect the coral.

First time I saw Foxy was with Samantha on our honeymoon. He was just a bloke with a guitar singing calypsos on the beach. His wife Tessa was selling lemonade from a makeshift stall under a palm tree. Hang on…come to think of it I was the one suggested he open a proper bar. Now look! They’ve got a bar spread across half the beach. Bareboaters everywhere eating and drinking. It looks like a Jimmy Buffet concert.  Business must be good.

He’s got an amazing memory too. He spots me in the shallow water and comes running down the beach. Dick!!! How are you man…long time no see!!

I could get all nostalgic and soppy here if I’m not careful. Hard not to with Foxy hugging me and Tessa waving from the bar.

 The memories come flooding back.

“How are you then Foxy?” I ask when he’s got me sitting back at the bar. “Who’s this?” I point to a life-size model of Foxy playing his guitar.

“That Epoxy Foxy Dick. He takes care of the place when I’m not around. So how’s life Dick? You

looking good.”

“Very nice Foxy. Got a good boat. Good little crew.”

I can’t fool Foxy. And he’s too smart to ask about Samantha. But I’m not.

“Was she here?”

“Oh she been a few times Dick.”

I think it’s safe to say that things started going wrong between me and Sam almost straight away. I still don’t understand it. We just started going separate ways. I wasn’t fucking around or nothing. Well not much. No more than she was. We didn’t hate each other or anything like that. We didn’t even fight. It was just the times.

“It is clear in retrospect that various narcotic substances including LSD, hashish, amphetamynes, peyote, and even heroine coupled with long hair, colourful clothes, fleeting sexual encounters and ‘far out’ music all contributed to the breakdown of the relationship.” I read that somewhere. I can’t argue with it but I wouldn’t have put it quite so formal. Seems to me we were living in a daze. Nothing stayed the same for 5 minutes. In those days if we weren’t crashed out on mattresses we were raving around on tube trains or jumping in and out of taxis. Life was either a long slow hash buzz or a jagged speedy race to nowhere. Or it could be a flashing, pulsating acid or a mixture of all of the above. This was life in Swinging London in the Sixties. One big blur. You’re getting the potted version. Pun intended. Skip it if you want.

I can’t remember when I got interested in modern art. Perhaps I never did. It could have started when I started going to gallery openings with Samantha. She loved all that stuff. Standing around nattering with wine and cheese. One opening does stick in my mind. Indica Gallery in Mason’s Yard.

                   

A Japanese girl had set some stuff up. There was an all-white chess set and a white ladder. You were supposed to climb the ladder and at the top there was a magnifying glass attached by a chain. You looked through the magnifying glass at some small words on the ceiling. They said “Y E S.” I watched John Lennon climb up the ladder. Yes, he said.

Well I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Then some weeks later we were at the EMI Studios on Abbey Road. A lot of people were recording there in those days, or nights I should say. Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd. It was the place to go late at night if you were stuck like, and you never knew who would show up there.

Studio One I think it was. The big one at the back. There was lots of people in there and of course Sam knew everybody. I got sharing a joint with a bloke who said he was Marianne Faithful’s ex-husband and somebody called Stash. A prince he said he was. Nice fella. Slipped me a bit of blotting paper. Things got funny. No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low. That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right, that is I think it’s not too bad.

Nobody I knew I don’t know what happened next Samantha told me later she ‘had’ to go off and do an interview with somebody or other. Would it be cool if she popped off to Jane’s? That would be her mate Jane Asher I supposed who may have been having it off with McCartney at the time. Not sure so don’t quote me on that. By this time me and Sam were at the point where we would go out together and come home separately. Nothing was real anyway and nothing to get hungabout. It didn’t matter much to me.

Anyway she’s gone and next thing I remember I’m out in the car park on me jack looking at a puddle full of soggy leaves.

Hello says this big bloke standing by a car. I’m Mal. You want a lift somewhere? Scouse accent. I notice Samantha’s took the Mini-Cooper so I say alright and hop in. Where you off then I ask. West End, says Mal, ‘Bag ‘O Nails’ most likely.

“Bag o’ Shite’” says a voice from the back. I turn round and fuck me there’s John Lennon and his missus Cynthia sitting there. Hello Dick, he says.

That was a strange night. We got shown to the best table in the Bag. Down near the stage where some bloke called Jimi Hendrix is about to give his first live performance in London. That’s what the announcer said anyway. Across the way Steve Marriott is dancing on a table showing off as usual… pop royalty scattered around the place.

Hendrix starts playing. Cynthia is on John’s right and I’m on his left. There’s an amp going right next to us. “Well Dick, says Lennon, “How’s the world of sport?” Alright, I say but tell the truth I can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s a historic occasion you could say, but all he wants to do is talk about his love-life. I’ve got ‘Hey Joe’ in one ear and this bloke going on about fucking women in the other. He’s reached a crossroads he says. Got to make a choice between the past and the future. I can’t remember what I said. What can you say to other blokes about that stuff? I’m stoned out of my pod and I got my own troubles anyway. Always, no sometimes, think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream. I think I know I mean a ’yes’ but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree. Mostly I’m wondering. Why me?

Several years later Mal got shot by police in Los Angeles.

Anyway that’s enough of that.

“Doing great Dick.” Says Foxy. “Got me own rum brand. Few gigs in the States. Busy all de time.”

Rakin’ it in man. Happy fellow Foxy. And good luck to him. The bloke’s no fool either. He must know people well by now too. He sees all kinds here. Probably knows me better than I know myself.

“Life is a funny ting eh Dick?” he says.
“Yes Phil it certainly is.”
Not many people know his real name is Philicianno.

Here’s the man himself….

Narration.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say a few words about narration. It’s a very misunderstood branch of literature in my opinion.

This is how it works. I keep getting stuff from the author….usually via the editor. They send it to me in emails, I narrate it and send it back. It’s my nonchalant tone they’re after I think. Easy enough for me. I don’t even try and I don’t worry about where it all fits in. I assume it’s all part of some larger pattern but that’s their business.

I know a lot of narrators develop identity problems. It’s an occupational hazard. Not me. I just sail my boat and try not to pay too much attention to world events. I’m well out of it. And I probably have another 10 years or so doing it if I’m lucky. I’ve got no plans. Bit of money in the bank. Live pretty much day to day. Live where I want but I prefer somewhere warm with a nice view, no bedroom tax, no IKEA and no automated phone menus. That’s about it.

What’s this novel about then you ask? Assuming it ever gets written. Well I’ll tell you what it’s not about.

It’s not about a funny awkward girl who falls in love with some cool rich dude with his very own helipad and a dungeon full of sex toys. There may be a pirate or two but no zombies. Nor will there be any cute little dragons called Zork who want to be like all the other little dragons but can’t breathe fire. There will be no breakthroughs in cruise missile technology and no startling revelations about the Illuminati, no psychopathic serial killers in rural Texas complete with mandatory vivid torture sequence, no oversize sharks and no bullet-proof transformer-type robotic creations crashing through foliage under the weight of extraneous features, no zombies and there will definitely not be any misunderstood vampires. Nor is it the heart-warming story of two Afghan lesbians overcoming all odds and finding fulfillment in Essex. It has nothing to do with a runaway Haitian slave who joins the US Cavalry only to change sides at the battle of Little Big Horn or the adventures of a 16-year-old concubine at the court of Genghiz Khan. Notes and false starts to those and other abandoned projects do exist somewhere but they all, let’s be frank, turned out to be beyond the author’s literary skill level. They didn’t excite me much either. Sorry about the rant but I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.

The point is narrating gives me something to do and it frees me up to ramble on about my own life.  I can keep this post-modern stuff going ad infinitum. They probably delete most of it but I don’t mind. It makes as much sense as all the other things people do. Well it does to me. And that’s what counts. Who else gives a toss?

So why do it?

Why not?

Miss Perfect part 4. (Climax)

After two hours fighting the fog round Doncaster in low gear I’m ready for a welcome break. What I need is a good nosh. So I pull into what used to be a greasy spoon before it became Fortes. Now it’s a fast-food village staffed by illegal immigrants. I park my lorry-load of half-dead broiler hens going north beside another one going south. Don’t laugh, the money’s good. I got my old job back, found a place to kip but I can’t stop thinking about Thailand and Nok and Chuck and all the rest of it. Was I really there? I have to check my passport sometimes to be sure.


Another thing, I find it hard to talk to people since I got back. You mention Thailand and they give you funny looks. Like you’re Gary Glitter or something. I want to tell people about it but what’s the point? My mind’s still back there. Sometimes I find myself looking at Asian women and wondering if I can just give them a smile and start talking. Could get myself in a right mess like that.


Or I imagine myself walking along Sukavit and it’s exactly like I’m really there. I can feel the heat. I see it all. The sounds, the smells, the people, the traffic. Every day is an adventure. You never know what’s coming next in Thailand. Thais are a funny lot. Look at how they walk for instance. The way the vendors stick their bloody stalls right across the pavement so you’ve only got a bit of room for walking anyway and the Thais dawdle along, stop right in front of you. What a dozy bunch. And don’t get me started on the bloody Indian tailors.


Your moods change fast when you live there. Up and down all the time. Towards the end of my time there I thought I was going fucking nuts. Days were running into each other and I’d lost track of the date.  One night I had a dream. I woke up sweating and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’d slept a lot in the day. I was scared shitless of something but I didn’t know what. In the dream I’d lost control of my senses. I was driving a lorry on a motorway, the rain was belting down and the wipers couldn’t keep up, my foot was jammed in the accelerator pedal somehow and it didn’t matter how much I pumped on the brakes nothing happened I just kept going faster and faster.


I wanted to tell Nok about the dream but she was sat on the bed clipping her toenails and suddenly she throws the clippers down and says ‘Booa!’

‘Booa? What’s that?’

‘I very boring.’ She says.

OK. Fair enough. We’ve been in the room all day. I ask her if she wants to go to a movie or something and off we go on the Sky Train to BMK. The movie had Brad Pitt in it but I can’t remember much because I couldn’t relax. The Thai bloke who took our tickets said something to her when we went in but she wouldn’t tell me what. Smarmy little bugger he was. He’s lucky he didn’t get a knuckle sandwich.


Then she disappears for a few days so I go looking for Chuck. He isn’t too hard to find. Golden Bar. Same seat.

‘How goes the battle?’ Chuck asks.

‘Not too good.’ I say.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘I’m all wound up. I feel like punching someone out.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I don’t belong here.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘How about you? ‘

‘Me?’

‘Do you belong here?’

‘Hard to answer that. I belong everywhere and nowhere.’

I wonder if he’s taking the piss.

‘It’s Nok. She hasn’t been showing up for work. I go there and I get the old ‘Nok go village.’ Stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s bollocks but what can I do? Four days now! I’m going fucking spare.’

Chuck isn’t much help. It may be true about the village, he says, but the odds are against it. She’s probably in Samui with a sponsor would be my guess. A looker like that would have 2 or 3 sponsors on the go.

‘What’s a sponsor for fuck’s sake?’ Aren’t I paying for everything?

Then I get an idea. Maybe Chuck can keep an eye on her when I’m not here. I’m not sure I can come right out and ask him. First I need to butter him up a bit. Blokes like him love talking about themselves.

‘What’s it like being a writer then?’ I ask. ‘Why do you do it?

‘Words. Getting them out. It’s a compulsion,’ says Chuck, ‘I don’t understand it myself. It’s just something I need to do. Fact and fiction can get mixed up. I tried my hand at journalism but I prefer fiction these days. It’s all fiction anyway after a few beers. Writing helps me make sense of things. I like the way groups of words appear out of nowhere. Felicitous syntactical conjunctions.’

He’s barmy. That’s the trouble with the educated types. Too clever for their own bloody good. But I’ve met worse. Maybe that’s the way you get if you stay here long enough. ‘You stare at the street a lot I notice.’ I say.

‘Yes, I see it and I don’t if you know what I mean. I find it hypnotic.’

‘I was wondering. When I go back to England could you keep an eye on Nok? She’s promised to wait for me. Just pop in once in a while and have a beer.’

‘No way.’ Says Chuck. ‘No offence but I don’t like getting too involved with other people’s romantic liaisons.’ More posh talk. Why can’t he keep it simple?

‘I’ll pay you.’

‘How much?’

So me and Chuck trot off to Nok’s bar and of course she’s not bloody there. That doesn’t stop a couple of other tarts from coming over asking for colas. They soon start the old ‘How long you stay Thailand?’ nonsense.

‘Let’s skip it,’ says Chuck, ‘there are other places.’

So we go to a few more go-go bars but it doesn’t do much for me. I’m just not in the mood for it. We end up in this place in a basement. Thermi Coffee Shop or something. Sort of a pick-up place. Lot of girls hanging around a jukebox. Chuck seems to have a lot of friends down there. I follow him around for a bit. It looks a bit dodgy to me. Japanese blokes. Even some Arab types. But Chuck seems to like it. He tells me he comes here a lot. Used to be great in the old days he says. Always talking about the ‘old days’ is Chuck. You could get a girl long time for 100 baht, beer was only 10 baht etc. etc. Sure, sure. Not much help to me is it?


We find a place to sit and it’s not long before a couple of girls join us. I’m not sure if Chuck knows them or not. I’m not interested myself but he seems happy with his so I buy everybody a drink. My treat. Chuck rattles off a bit of Thai and I take a peek at the girl sitting next to me. Shy type. She does have a pretty smile I must admit. But not as nice as Nok’s.

‘I think she likes you.’ Says Chuck.

‘Wouldn’t be right.’

‘Still thinking about Nok?’

‘Of course. These girls are all on the game right?’

‘And Nok isn’t?’

‘She’s different.’

Chuck gives me a funny look and scribbles something on one of his scraps of paper.


I think he’s getting bored with me. It’s not like I do much and I don’t have anything interesting to say. One day I asked him straight out. ‘Am I getting on your tits?’

‘No not really,’ he says, ‘well yes a bit. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m trying to do something a bit different here but it’s not easy coming up with a new angle. I’ve been reading and writing about Bangkok for too long maybe.’

I know bugger all about writing so I’m not much use.

‘What I'm aiming for,’ says Chuck, ‘is a sort of steady drone, like the sound of Bangkok traffic. I want to go beyond Private Dancer. Perhaps it can’t be done. And perhaps you have to be totally jaded to appreciate it.’

Then he says he’s taken this thing as far as he can. Time to call it a day.

‘I can keep it going but the readers will complain.’

‘Sod the readers,’ I say, ‘what about me? You can’t leave me like this.’

‘I’m not sure you’re cut out for Thailand. I’m sending you back to England.’

‘Sod that.’

‘It’s for your own good. You need to go home and think about things. You can always come back. Maybe try Pattaya next time.’

I’m not happy about it but he’s right. And it is his story after all. He said he wanted to get back to basics. He didn’t want his main character to be too complex…an ordinary bloke like me. Bit rude really but what can I do? I hope he’s got what he wanted.


Later we’re sitting on plastic stools out on the street eating noodles. Girls and farang are walking up and down. It all looks a bit rough. A lot of the blokes are well pissed and some of the girls look downright desperate.

‘Wonderful isn’t it?’ says Chuck. ‘This is life stripped to its essentials.’

A girl comes along the street spots us, big smile. ‘Hello Nim,’ says Chuck. Then he gets up, pays his bill and says, ‘Right, I’m off. See you around.’ And off he goes with the girl, just like that, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And that was the last time I saw him.


So here I am back in England. Eating a fry-up on the Motorway. Filthy cold grey weather outside, gloomy people inside, and sod all I can do about it. I’ve tried calling Nok but the cell-phone number she gave me doesn’t work. Wonder what Chuck’s up to? Seeing him nearly every day I got to know him quite well. Can’t say I understand what makes him tick but he certainly made me think. Why would anybody would want to write about somebody like me? I’m just another farang. Same old story. Beats me how he’s going to come up with a new twist to it.