A Woman of Bangkok (40 page)

The truth was that she was feeling and looking a lot better than when we’d come to Chiengmai. Much of the strain had gone out of her face. She seemed younger and happier. Her knee was still bothering her, also her wrist and scalp; and her legs were stiff from so much walking. But her spirit was not disabled by these injuries. Back in the hotel she gave herself to me with an abandon that took my breath away. There was something desperate about her passion, as if she sensed the end was at hand, that we’d reached the peak of experience together and from now on must slide downhill, and finally lose each other … There was something of the same painful urgency in my own emotions too …

We breakfasted in the room, she lying on the bed. ‘Now you go bank?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long you go?’

‘I don’t know. Got to find a bank that’ll cash my cheque. I may be two hours, may be only twenty minutes. I can’t say.’ I kissed her—on the lips, a salute she usually refused. ‘What will you do while I’m gone, darling?’

‘I slip.’

I was gone longer than I expected. When I got downtown the banks still weren’t open. Then I had to find one that would cash my cheque. I wandered about, worrying. More than once—that infernal jealousy of mine—I thought of dashing back to the hotel to see if I’d catch her with Dan. Of course, I disdained to do so, but the suspicion, an ignoble one I felt, was in my mind. It was a relief when my business was finished. I drew four thousand—two thousand for her, two thousand for the hotel, fares, and my own tiny expenses. The bank manager accepted a Broderick Peers card with respect. Of course the cheque would bounce, but by that time I’d be back in Bangkok with another payday behind me. Surely I’d be able to attribute everything to a mistake …

I tore back to the hotel. She was lying as I’d left her, covered with a sarong, dopey-eyed. Dan’s room was shut up. ‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame.’ That was said of lust, but it applied even more to jealousy, I thought. Lust at any rate pays some dividends to the non-spiritual but jealousy is just a drain on any man’s strength, it is entirely evil, it does no good either to the one that is jealous or to the object of jealousy. I put the two thousand into her hand.

I lay on my own bed until she got over her drowsiness. That day she wore an off-the-shoulder dress with a tight waist and a full skirt: it suited her to perfection. The design was complex but could be resolved at last into green discs as big as oranges on a white background with a barbaric script in black scribbled all all over. Of all her dresses this was the one I liked the most. She seemed amused to hear this.

We went to the riverside café again, but she had been sampling delicacies bought at the market and was less hungry than usual. She then went to buy a shampoo powder, and became interested in a set of silk panties, seven pairs, one for each day of the week. She ordered them. ‘Giff the girl the money, darling.’—‘Not me. I’ve given you the last penny I’m giving you in Chiengmai. You’re nothing but a damn’ mercenary bitch.’—‘But you tell me they nice, darling. Don’t you want to giff me pless-ent?’—‘No.’—She laughed and cancelled the order, bought only the shampoo.

I took her to a hairdresser’s recommended by the chemist and left her there. Went to the station and bought our tickets. Called in at the hotel for a beer and had three while I was about it. Returned to the hairdresser’s to pick her up. She was still perfectly happy but I wasn’t. I’d brooded too long over the beers. Nobody, I was damn’ sure, had ever taken her any further than Hua Hin for a weekend. Nobody else had ever, in spite of her boasts, paid her five thousand eight hundred in one week, plus hotel, food, fares, and incidental purchases. At least, nobody as poor as I was. Yet there were no limits to her greed, it seemed. Nor would there have been any limits to my generosity, I thought, if she’d once acted satisfied—if she’d once shown love (as opposed to mere lust). But I was convinced she was indifferent to me. The first quarrel we’d had had really been the end. For what I was seeking was blessed accord with one woman. I was not just seeking carnal delights intermingled with strife …

Nevertheless wandering along the roads to Doi Suket and Sang-kon-peng, looking at houses and farms—stopping at wayside shops to eat noodles or drink iced coffee—we were in holiday mood. When we got back to the hotel she borrowed a push-bike from one of the boys, changed her frock for a blouse and scarlet slacks, and went for a ride around the flowerbeds and out to the station and back. She returned with her face glowing: ‘I not do since I luttun girl. Giff boy ten tic, darling, ’cause he let me do wiss he—’ A gesture sketched the bike.

Dan appeared at his door as soon as he heard the gold bell tinkling on her wrist and the rest of the evening passed in talk. She curdled our blood with tales of the American she liked best—‘I sink maybe I luff him littun bit’—and before she’d told us half, Dan and I were ready to murder the man. He sounded such a bastard, and she so naive. It was he who’d taught her to drink whisky, ‘and now I not want peppermint any more: it too slow. When I d’ink whisky, very quick I d’unk, I happy; ’cause you know dancing-girl must be very unhappy sometimes. She know she neffer can haff what she haff if she good girl …’

Dan and I both gave her lots of good advice and lurid warnings, especially about the demoralizing influence of unprincipled Americans (Dan got very worked up on this point) and I described how the demon whisky creeps up on a girl and one morning she wakes to find that overnight she’s turned into an old harridan. But she was supremely confident. ‘Whisky neffer bad for Vilai. Well, only one time.’ She turned round and showed Dan the back of her head, parting her hair. ‘You see? You see where I hurt?’ She caught hold of his hand and placed it on her scalp. ‘You can feel?’

I exclaimed, ‘What d’you mean? I thought your
samlor
—’ She barely noticed the interruption—all evening she’d been showing more interest in Dan than in me—she only said, ‘Why you sink
samlor
? Dick—that my frand—he come my house, I get d’unk. I go pee-pee—fall down stair …’ She showed Dan her wrist and tried to show him her knee but the slacks wouldn’t pull up far enough. I sat sulking; lied to again. Dick …

There was one other fragment of conversation that disturbed me. Dan was making sure what time our train left in the morning. ‘Why you ask?’ Vilai asked. ‘You want go Bangkok wiss me?’

‘No, no.’ He flushed slightly. ‘I was just thinking, if I got up early, maybe I could finish—’

She made an almost imperceptible movement and he stopped.

Jealousy sharpened my wits. ‘What, have you been painting her portrait—while I was out this morning?’ I asked Dan.

She said, ‘I sink you cannot get up early. You very lacy boy. I sink when train go tomollow, you still slip. Every day Wretch, I, go out, I look you window, I see you on you bad. Like you d’ad …’ She looked at her watch. ‘And tonight you stay up very late. I sink tomollow you not get up at all, you slip all day …’

She’d chattered on so long, I couldn’t put my question to Dan again, without making it quite clear that I suspected she’d kept me in the dark about something.

At midnight the party broke up. She lingered at our door for a private farewell with Dan. Coming into our room she said, ‘He do this to me,’ making the gesture of blowing a kiss.

‘He’s loopy about you.’

‘I know. But no use. Not haff money.’

‘Then why do you encourage him?’

She didn’t hear. Got into bed. I got in with her.

‘No. Not here. Slip your own bed.’

‘Last night you said—’

‘But I tired. Later maybe. Now—oh, go away.’

Then it happened. The sudden frantic uncontrollable rage. I poured out obscenities. I hurled myself around the room. She lay on her bed, rigid with fear. I tucked in her net. I put out the light. Then I threw myself on my own bed, sobbing and twitching and swearing. The fit passed off in a few minutes, and I just lay sobbing, occasionally shuddering violently. She lay very still, frightened out of her wits. She fell asleep and snored a little and scared herself awake again. She listened a long time. And I stifled my weeping. It was all spoiled now. Even for five days I couldn’t live with a woman. I remembered the fear in Annette’s eyes, and, years later, Sheila crying and crying like a beaten child …

At last I fell asleep. Soon after, as it seemed, I was awakened: Vilai had switched the light on and was going to the bathroom. Coming back she switched the light off and got into my bed, not hers. I turned my back on her without a word. With her, too, I had failed.

Next morning I got up first. She joined me on the verandah while I was finishing my bacon and eggs. She watched me silently out of the corner of her eyes for several minutes. At last, realizing I was at fault, I began, ‘I’m sorry about—

‘What matter wiss you last night?’ she pounced. ‘You d’unk? I fright very mutss. I fray you kill me.’

‘I’d never kill you, Vilai. Myself more like. I never get angry with the girl. Only with myself.’

‘But why you—?’

‘I don’t know. Every time I love a girl too much this happens. That’s why I’m not married.’

‘Ah, I not want talk marry. All the time you tell lie. No man want to marry wiss dancing-girl.’

‘Only me.’

‘You cracy. We fight now, when we not marry. If we marry we fight fight all the time. Too mutss trouble.’

‘We might fight some of the time, but the rest of the time we’d make up for it.’

‘I not want man who fight wiss me.’

‘Of course not. I know I’m not good enough for you, darling. This discussion is purely academic.’ I got up.

‘Where you go?’

‘Don’t you want me to fetch the raw pork you ordered? You told ’em to have it ready by eight this morning.’

‘You go alone?’

‘Darm-chai khun.’
(It’s up to you.) ‘I’ve got no car this morning, but we fit into a
samlor
quite snugly, you and I.’

‘No. I stay here. Pack my sings.’

‘OK. That’ll give Dan a chance to finish the portrait too. I’ll be gone about an hour.’

She gave me a sharp look and went into our room. I followed to put my shoes on. She was taking things out of drawers. As I started to go, she caught my arm. She looked up into my eyes with the blackest pain in hers. ‘Wretch, you come back?’

‘Of course I’ll come back. I’m only going for the
mu-som.’

She still clung to me, searching my face, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She dashed my arm away and turned back to the chest of drawers. I dithered a moment, daunted by a woman’s tears as always. But then I steeled my heart. No sense in starting all over again, yet. A few tears might soften her up. We’d have plenty of time to work things out in the train.

I was gone about forty-five minutes. When I got back our door was shut. I thumped on it for a few minutes, first thinking she might be dozing, then getting slightly exasperated. Just as I was preparing to give the door a real bang, the boy who was cleaning up in Dan’s room came out. ’
Bai-lao
,’ he said, in the laconic Thai style.

‘Gone! Gone where?
Bai-nai?’

He shrugged.
‘Mai-ru.’

‘You don’t know? Did she leave any message? Er—
bok arai-na?’

‘Bok hen khun satani.’

‘Oh, she’ll meet me at the station.’ I can’t express the relief I felt. ‘OK. Open the door.
Burt ba-daw.’

He produced a key and opened up. The emptiness of the room hit me like a smack in the face. Nothing lying about anywhere, everything shut up and dusted off. My bag was standing, ready strapped up, in the corner, but hers had gone. ‘So she took her things!’ The boy shrugged again. He was grinning slightly.

I paid the bills, and the boy carried the bag and the hamper of
mu-som
down to a waiting
samlor
. As we passed Dan’s door. I asked,
‘farang yu mai yu hong?’
—is the foreigner in his room?

‘Bai-lao’
said the boy again. I didn’t know whether he meant gone out on business or gone for good. But I imagined he’d gone to the station with Vilai …

They weren’t on the platform. They weren’t in our compartment. Neither was her luggage.

I had more than an hour to wait before the train would leave. I paced up and down the platform. I could only imagine now that they’d gone to the market—Vilai had said she’d wished she’d bought a few other delicacies—or to complete her portrait against some really delectable background. I only hoped they wouldn’t become so absorbed in whatever they were doing that they missed the train …

After half an hour I began to get badly worried. I wanted to go and search for them—but which way should I turn? I hadn’t the faintest idea where they were—or even whether they were together …

At nine-seventeen the brass bell on the platform was tolled three times. ‘All aboard.’ Three more minutes to go.

I got on the train in a sort of dream. I shut the door on myself for some reason. I leaned right out of the window, staring towards the entrance. There was hardly anybody in that direction, only the station-master, in superb uniform, standing by his bell. His hand reached out and it clanged again, once, twice, three times. There was the shriek of a whistle up ahead, a green flag waved. Suddenly I had the sensation that I was swooning. The train was on the move, that was all; Chiengmai was beginning to slip away; the moneymoon was over.

Ten minutes later, after the ticket-collector had been told the sad news—my wife had been taken ill, and had had to stay behind at the McCormick Hospital—I threw my gold ring out of the window. It hit a bathing water buffalo and bounced off his back into his wallow.

Twelve

When I got to the office the following Monday I found an airmail letter marked ‘Personal’ awaiting me. It was from Chiengmai, and addressed in a spidery, wayward sort of hand. Turning to the signature first, I found it was from Dan. Its contents astonished me.

Dear Joyce
,

You make a great point of parading your intellectual honesty, so you will appreciate it if I talk straight to you
.