Bar Girl (34 page)

When she was gently taken aside by the medics, Siswan knew they were too late. She had heard the last breath Mirak would ever take. She had heard it and still held him. Still stroked his face. She would never understand him. She would never get the chance. Suddenly, Mike was there. Holding her.

‘Are you alright, Siswan?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, Mike,’ she said. ‘I’m okay. Just shocked.’

‘When they said there had been gunshots,’ he tailed off.

She clung to him. Held him as though she was scared he’d leave her. Bak dead. Mirak dead. She started to cry. Softly into his shoulder. She cried, not so much from the sadness of their deaths, but from the relief that it was all over.

The police asked her a few questions. She told them her brother was drunk. Angry at having missed their father’s funeral. She told them he had pulled a gun, was going to shoot her. Mirak had turned up just in time. Just in time to save her.

The police believed her story. They knew Mirak and her had been going out with each other for quite a while. It wouldn’t have been unusual for him to meet her after work. They didn’t ask any other questions. Didn’t bother to search the place. After all, she was a good customer. Paid them more than any of the other bars.

When they left, when she had assured Mike that she was fine. When the bodies had been removed and she was alone once more, she went to the cellar. Retrieved the knife and the envelope.

The papers contained all the information regarding the attack in the park. The old man had been a known drunk for many years. He had been in trouble with the police several times. Once related to an attack on another young girl. She used one of the ashtrays to carefully burn each piece of paper. Her past was over.

By the time she left the bar the morning sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. Instead of making for her small room, she strolled down to the beach. To the spot where she and Karn used to sit.

The beach was deserted. As the sun rose higher she could make out the waves racing towards the beach. They just kept coming. One after the other.

She allowed her mind to go back to when she had left Nong’s Bar. The weeks she had spent looking for the next bar. Looking for the next step she knew she had to take to make her dreams come true.

Eventually, that step had brought her to Mike’s Bar. She had spent several weeks checking over the place. Making certain it was right. She had listened to the conversations between Tam and the rest of the girls. Had overheard them as they gossiped outside the bar. She had been right. The bar needed help or it would close. She had made her move.

She remembered the first night she had spoken to Mike. The first night she had told him how she could help him. It all seemed like a lifetime ago.

She remembered Karn. Sood. Lon. Mai. She remembered them all. Bar girls who came for the money. Came to sell themselves. Sell their bodies. Sell their souls.

She looked to the waves. Now the future lay before her as clear as the day that was dawning around her. She had spoken with her mother again. Laid to rest the resentment she had felt towards her. She had Mike, Apple and Rican to help her now. To help her achieve her goal.

Siswan brushed the sand from her hands as she stood. She walked down to the water’s edge and strolled along feeling the coolness of the water on her feet. The future beckoned. She walked towards it.

Mike had beamed at everyone. He was the proud owner of four bars, a new bride and had the two best looking bridesmaids anyone had ever seen before. He paraded them as though they were his daughters, and neither of them minded in the least.

Although Siswan and Apple had insisted, Mike and Rican refused to go away on a honeymoon.

‘We’re in paradise. What’s the point of going away,’ he told them, with a laugh.

‘Well, you have to take some time off,’ Siswan told them.

‘Yes, you can’t be expected to work all night and still have enough energy left,’ Apple said.

The other three had looked at her in silence for a moment. Then they had all four burst out laughing.

‘Well, you know what I mean,’ Apple told them.

‘I’ve got enough energy, young lady. Don’t you worry,’ Mike told her, and wrapped his arm around Rican who blushed.

Two weeks after the wedding, Mike arranged a meeting between the four of them. He and Rican had some news they wanted to tell them about.

‘You’re not pregnant already are you?’ Siswan asked, in pretend shock.

‘No,’ Rican smiled. ‘Not yet anyway.’

‘Not ever,’ Mike butted in. ‘I’m too old for any more children.’

‘You never told me you had children,’ Rican turned to him.

‘I meant these two.’ Mike nodded towards Siswan and Apple.

‘Oh. That’s all right then.’ His wife smiled.

‘And that’s what we want to talk about,’ Mike told the two girls. ‘Rican and I have been thinking.’

‘What about?’ Apple asked.

‘About a will. My will,’ he replied.

‘What for?’ Siswan cut across. ‘You aren’t about to die.’

‘Calm down, Siswan.’ Mike laughed. ‘I have no intention of dying just yet, but we have to sort things out. I’m older than you. A lot older. I’ll probably go first. We need to make sure everything is sorted properly.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ Apple asked.

‘Well, as long as Rican is taken care of, I’m going to leave everything to you two,’ he told them.

‘Why not to Rican? I don’t understand,’ Siswan said.

‘I don’t know about business, Siswan,’ Rican told her. ‘How would I know?’

‘Look, we’ve already talked about this,’ Mike said, taking his wife’s hand.

‘Rican trusts you two as much as I do. If anything happens to me, we have to make sure the plan still goes ahead.’

‘But Rican, you can still do it with us,’ Apple said.

‘No, Apple. If anything should happen to Mike, I wouldn’t know what to do,’ Rican told her. ‘I’m a cook. That’s what I know.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. You aren’t going to die for a long time. I don’t know why we’re talking about it,’ Siswan said.

‘It will make me happy that everything is sorted, that’s all.’ Mike smiled.

‘Okay. If it will make you happy and stop you talking about dying,’ Apple agreed with Siswan.

That had been three years ago and Mike hadn’t died in the meantime. On the contrary, his marriage to Rican was having the reverse effect. He seemed younger than when Siswan had first walked into his bar.

Siswan had been keeping her eyes and ears open over the previous few months. She had been reading the papers avidly. Searching all the local adverts posted on the internet. Finally, she found what she had been looking for. She couldn’t wait to show the others.

‘Look,’ she said, as they all gathered round. ‘What do you think?’

She unfolded the newspaper in front of them and they all craned forward to read the advertisement she pointed out.

‘It’s got thirty rooms and it’s far enough outside of the town. What do you think?’ She looked at each of them in turn.

‘It looks good, Siswan,’ Mike said. ‘Just what we need. Have we got enough money?’

‘We’ve got enough to buy it,’ she told them. ‘But that’s all. We’d need to keep the bars going to run it.’

‘How much are we making a month now?’ Rican asked.

‘Just over three million a month,’ Siswan told her. ‘It’s enough to keep the place running. We’ll have to get it registered and rely on donations pretty quickly.’

‘Well, that’s that then,’ It was Rican who spoke. ‘We’ll go and look at it tomorrow.’

Mike turned to his wife. If there had been any hesitation on his part it would have been because of her. Because he was worried about the hard work he was getting her involved in as well as the risk of losing everything. He leaned towards her, kissed her on the cheek.

‘Tomorrow morning, Siswan? About eleven? I’ll make the call,’ he said and smiled.

Siswan could have kissed him right then and there.

‘Apple?’ She turned to her friend.

‘Oh, yes! Let’s get started,’ Apple said.

Mike made the call early the following morning and set up an appointment with the agent. Rican said she didn’t need to go. She had groceries to organise and she wanted to go over some new recipe ideas with the other three cooks. She told Mike that whatever he decided was fine by her.

Siswan met Apple and Mike outside her apartment block. She was really excited. This was the start. The start of the promise she had made to Sood and Karn. The last of the big waves.

They took a taxi to the hotel. It was situated a little out of town in a secluded road that looked down across the hills to the sea beyond. There was a small swimming pool, thirty bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms and, on the ground floor, living quarters for the staff. The staff rooms weren’t big but there were three separate bedrooms. Enough for the four of them.

‘If we all moved here, we’d save even more money,’ Apple suggested.

‘You and I can, Apple,’ Siswan said. ‘Mike, I want you and Rican to keep your apartment.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ he told her. ‘Rican won’t mind.’

Siswan smiled at him. He was so much the gentleman. He never worried about himself. She knew he loved the apartment she had found for him.

‘It’s not that, Mike,’ she said. ‘I just don’t think it’s right to have our Papa living with us. Do you Apple?’

‘No way!’ Apple grinned. ‘We’d have to in by ten every night!’

All three of them laughed. To get home by ten would be a real luxury.

‘What about you, Apple?’ Mike asked her. ‘With, er, men I mean?’

‘Oh Mike. Haven’t you noticed?’ she scolded him. ‘I haven’t been with a man for over a year. I think I’ve had enough of them.’

‘Right. Well, if you must know, I had noticed. I just needed confirmation, that was all,’ he said, huffily.

‘Oh, sure,’ Siswan giggled. ‘Come on then, let’s make a decision. Do we want it or not?’

‘Yes,’ Mike said.

‘Yes!’ agreed Apple.

‘Okay. When we see the agent, tell him we’ll think about it. Tell him we’ll ring him in a few days with an offer,’ Siswan told Mike.

Two weeks later they bought the hotel. Siswan had negotiated through Mike to get the price down by almost ten per cent. Three months later, her and Apple moved into the staff quarters.

Almost as soon as she had put her clothes away Apple ran into Siswan’s room.

‘Can I call her?’ she asked.

Siswan knew what she was talking about. They had discussed it many times before. Both of them had been keeping in touch with Lon via the telephone and mail. She had managed to find some work in one of the factories near her village. She was paid a pittance and what she did earn she had to give to her father. Life hadn’t been too good for her since she’d had to leave the bars. Her spirits remained high but both Siswan and Apple knew she was lonely and miserable.

‘Yes. Get her here,’ Siswan answered. ‘She’ll love it!’

When Lon arrived, she was the first bar girl to be offered a place in the home. After their first advertising campaign, using the local media and the internet, twelve girls turned up. Two had young children, three others were addicted to drugs to such an extent they could no longer work. One had been attacked by her employer and was cut extensively around the mouth and nose. All of them needed help. All of them were suffering. None were turned away.

When Mike informed Siswan that the authorities needed a name to register as a charity she gave him the one name that she had always dreamed about using.

‘Baan Sood, Mike,’ she told him. ‘It means Sood’s Home.’

A month later they were given their registration. Sood’s Home became a refuge for bar girls who, for whatever reason, had had enough. Those that couldn’t work anymore. Those that found themselves in trouble.

Rican left Mike’s Bar, found another cook to replace her, and worked full time at the home. She worked tirelessly tending to the girls needs. Siswan campaigned constantly, using the press, the internet, and anything she could think of to get the necessary publicity. Mike discussed the home with all the other bar owners, farang and local. He managed to convince them that the home was worth investing in, that they owed the girls who needed help, a chance to recover. A chance to start again.