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.
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