“No, she didn’t say anything. What’s this all about, Beou? And how are you anyway?”
“Oh, I’m fine. A few of the old women back home warned Lek to be careful that you didn’t sell her into the sex industry. A lot of people are worried about it, but I told her that the old biddies in the village were just jealous.”
Lek could still barely speak so she covered her face below her eyes with a hand to hide her blushes.
“Oh, Beou! How could you? I didn’t really believe them, but you hear such terrible things, don’t you? And I never said anything about an old men’s home or a football team! And I didn’t even know what rugby was until a few months ago.” Then in English: “Don’t believe her, Craig..... Well, not all of it anyway.”
“I don’t know what you are all talking about. Don’t believe all of what? What did Beou say?” asked Craig
“Oh, don’t worry, I tell you later. It is not important now. Ladies in the village tell me to take care nobody sell me into sex slavery, that’s all. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, is that all,” he replied, still not completely understanding. One thing he had learned though was that if Lek said ‘later’, it usually meant either ‘no’ or ‘never’, so he just let it drop. He trusted her and her judgement and, besides that, they were back on her turf now where she knew far more than he ever would.
Beou sat down and a gin and tonic was put in front of her, she lit a cigarette and rang the bell, which was an uncommon thing for her to do. Half-a-dozen of the girls jumped up to see to their boss’ order, but they all came back to find out how the story would develop. Beou didn’t mind that, she was a pretty good employer and the majority of these girls were not there to clean glasses anyway.
Lek recovered quickly from her embarrassment and she seemed to have thrown off the effects of the tablets too. The adrenaline and excitement of being with her friends again had ‘sobered’ her up faster than a cold shower, a coffee or even a car crash ever could have. She was flying high and everybody else was up there with her, so Craig just settled back to drink his beer and watch the proceedings.
Customers came and went and girls got up to keep them company and either came back when the man had left or went with him. Some girls had their regulars, whom they were grooming so that they too might have an adventure like Lek’s. Everybody wanted what Lek had and they were hoping that she would pass on some secret, insider tips on how to accomplish it.
No-one was surprised that Lek had been the first to manage going abroad in years and no-one begrudged her her good fortune either. She was their big sister, the legendary heroine Lek, and they all wanted to be like her. Even the new girls had heard of her, they had just never met her in the flesh. This put Craig on a pedestal, because they all assumed that a woman like Lek would have had many chances to get out, but just didn’t take them for one reason or another. That meant that Craig must be something special.
No Adonis, so must be kind and wealthy, most of them assumed. Or at least well-off.
Sometimes, Lek wasn’t sure why either. Some things were coming to a head in her life, it was true: she was no spring chicken any more; but more than that, her daughter, Soomsomai, was twelve, and she didn’t want her to know that her mother was associated with the seamier side of life. She also liked Craig a lot, even loved him and he was kind. Not wealthy, but well-off by her standards and still of an age that he could work.
For his part, Craig really loved Lek. He had never met anyone like her before. True, he had worked, studied and travelled nearly all his life and had never been married, but he wasn’t totally inexperienced with women either. He had just never met one quite like Lek before. Or maybe he just happened to meet her when the time was right. He didn’t know and was not much interested in why anyway. He knew that he wanted to stay with her and that he wanted to stay in Thailand, a place he had come to prefer over his own country.
The only problems from his point of view were that he had always been wary of marrying someone from abroad because of his limited financial resources and the huge travelling costs involved with visiting two sets of parents on two different continents regularly. He would not be able to work in Thailand except perhaps as a teacher and he was sure that he lacked the patience and confidence for that. There was savings money and a few investments for the time being but how long would it last?
That was the big question.
He would have to get out of central Pattaya as soon as possible; that much was clear, but go where? He only knew Pattaya. Bangkok was sure to be even more expensive and he didn’t like big cities anyway. They both liked Pattaya, so maybe they could move to the suburbs. He and Lek had not broached the subject yet, but they had pre-booked an apartment for two months, so they had some time to work something out.
Craig spent the next six or seven hours day dreaming and drinking, while Lek spent them drinking and talking. It wasn’t boring.
Not at all. It was peaceful. Relaxing.
He had even managed to filter out the awful, loud music that he so detested. He was just so pleased to be back in Pattaya and Thailand. He was tempted to go and look at the sun setting on the sea, but couldn’t be bothered.
At sometime near one o’clock, the official closing time in Pattaya, jet lag and the alcohol were winning out over the excitement and adrenaline and Lek reluctantly wanted to call it a day and go to their room. Beou called them a taxi which arrived too soon. They had hoped it would take ten or twenty minutes to get there, but it arrived in two. Lek knocked her whiskey back in one and Craig took his bottle with him. The driver put their bags in the boot and they were off. Glad to be going to their new home for the next few months.
Their apartment was in the Diana Estate which was not far away in Soi Buakhao so they were there in less than ten minutes despite the busy streets. The security guard on the gate was waiting for them with the key to the apartment, because the concierge had already gone to bed. Not that that was a problem. They refused the security guards offer to show them the way as Craig had inspected the apartment three months previously before paying the deposit.
They went up to the room, stripped off and showered together. When they fell onto the bed, Craig was starkers and Lek was in her customary towel; pleased to be wrapped in a towel like she had been for some time every day of her life in Thailand and which she had missed in the UK. She had never thought that such a simple thing like a towel could bring so much pleasure. She hadn’t realised that she had missed it in Britain, but now that she had its protection around her again, she knew that she had.
Or maybe it was just Thailand and her friends that she had missed when she was in Europe, despite the fact that it had been her ambition for ten years to make that journey.
It didn’t matter for now really; neither of them had much chance to analyse anything because they were both fast asleep in minutes.
That would have to wait until the next day, the real start of their new life, their exciting future, together.
1 2 SETTLING IN
They woke up at nine o’clock, which was a bit later than had become normal for them. When Lek had been working, she usually didn’t get up until midday or even later, but if she was with someone, it depended on the friend.
She had been with Craig for almost a year now and she had adapted quite easily to his lifestyle. In fact, she usually got up a couple of hours before him in order to get most of the chores done first. She had also gone back to eating rice soup first thing in the morning as she had done when a girl in the village, like most people did in the countryside.
There was no food in the apartment, so Lek went for a shower, in order to go out to the shops nearby. Craig put the TV on to look for Pattaya People’s News, a local news channel that broadcasts mostly in English. He lay there catching up with what had been happening in the last seven days. As usual, a Scandinavian had jumped, fallen or been pushed off a balcony and somebody had been robbed at knife-point by a couple of lady boys on the beach at three a.m.
Some things never changed.
His mobile phone rang and it took him by surprise until he remembered that they had both put their Thai SIMM’s back in the day before. It was Lek, but then who else would be phoning him, he thought.
“Hello, darling. What’s going on? Are you OK?”
“Sure, telak, but there is a good-looking café on the grounds outside the room. I don’t want to cook, so will you come down here and we can eat in there or outside in the sunshine? They have Thai and falang food. The coffee looks good too.”
“OK, don’t cook. I’ll have a quick shower and see you there. Where is it?”
“Go onto the balcony, look down to the left and you see me. I stand outside the café.”
Craig did as he was told and saw Lek waving up at him enthusiastically.
“All right, go inside. I’ll be down in ten or fifteen minutes.”
He didn’t rush. He fancied a coffee, but he didn’t usually eat soon after getting up. Lek, on the other hand, liked to eat within minutes of getting out of bed, unless she had to go outside when it would be minutes after her shower. She was one of those people who start to feel ill, if they don’t eat regularly. Lek grazed throughout the day, whereas Craig liked one or two large meals.
When Craig caught up with Lek, she was eating a bowl of rice soup – the Thai equivalent of porridge. She had learned to drink tea and coffee because of the company she had kept, but left to her own devices, she preferred ice-cold water.
Although a lot of the apartments were owned or occupied by foreigners, farang or falang in Thai, the staff in the café could not understand his English, so Lek ordered him an English breakfast and a coffee. It was meant to be a treat, but Craig wasn’t really hungry. It was a poor imitation of an English breakfast too, but he pretended to enjoy it so as not to disappoint anyone.
It was a glorious day and the sun glinted off the small pool nearby. There was also a big pool just under their balcony and Craig decided to go swimming every day to loose some weight. He hoped that Lek would join him, but doubted it somehow.
“Telak, what you want to do today? I love this compound and I love our room. What shall we do?”
He could almost hear her think: ‘Say, go down to Daddy’s Hobby, go on say it.’
“I don’t know. We need to discuss where we are going to live and how we are going to make a living, but I suppose we don’t have to start doing that right away...”
“We can stay here! And you can swim and work on the computer. Same as before; and I will take care of you and maybe find a small job, although that is not easy. You want me work in a shop or a hotel – make bed – or in a bar?”
“We are booked in here for two months, but after that, I think we need something permanent. And yes, I will try to do something on the Internet, but no, I don’t really want you to do any of those jobs. That can wait for now anyway, unless something comes your way that you would like to do.”
“OK, good idea. You want to swim after breakfast. I go get towels and costumes and book for you,” and she was gone. Craig suspected that she had a plan of some kind. Thai women, and a lot of Thai city men, do their best to stay out of the sun because they want to keep their skin white, so why would she volunteer to sit at the poolside with him?
Lek came down with a duffel bag with his things in and a towel around her waist, which made him think that he must have misjudged her. While he went to get changed in the toilet, Lek rearranged two of the sun loungers to be as much in the small amount of shade as possible. She also put a couple of parasols up.
The pool was deserted and looked very inviting even though it was eleven a.m.
