by Lilburne,Guy
Angel only took a few minutes to throw some clothes into a holdall bag. She picked up a small red tray that had an assortment of lip sticks and make-up on it and tipped everything into the bag on top of her clothes. Finally she picked up a few pairs of shoes and a pair of flip-flops and stuffed them into the bag. She zipped it and we were ready to go. As we walked back towards Nit’s hotel it suddenly occurred to me that they might already be fully booked.
“If they have no more rooms at Nit’s hotel then you can have my room and I’ll sleep in the car.”
Angel didn’t say anything. She just squeezed my hand and gave me another kiss on the cheek. I was never very good at reading body language and all that sort of thing, but I thought that Angel must have liked me quite a lot, because she had kissed me twice already. I liked her too, but I didn’t kiss her because I was in love with Pom and I wouldn’t have liked it if Pom kissed somebody else. Oh my God! It occurred to me at that moment that Pom might have already kissed her boyfriend and, at that moment, my heart hit the floor. I didn’t know why life and relationships had to be so complicated all the time. I didn’t think that I was the only person in the world who wanted a simple happy life.
We walked into Nit’s hotel and it looked as shabby on the inside as it did from the outside. It turned out that the middle aged lady with the dyed red hair was Nit, the owner of the hotel. I had spoken fluent Thai for a long time and I explained to Nit that my room had already been paid for, but now we needed another room for my friend Angel.
“Do you want room for short time?”
“Yes. It is a short time really. We’ll be leaving at 9:30am.”
“Why not lady share your room? No extra charge.”
“Yes. I can share same room, no problem” said Angel, with one of her beautiful red lip gloss smiles.
“Oh!” I said.
Nit handed me a room key from off a row of hooks in the wall behind her.
“Room 4,” she said. “No air condition. No coffee. No breakfast. You want something, go Seven Eleven shop.”
She sounded like she was telling me off. I think that maybe she had just not had a good day.
“I think better we go Seven Eleven first” said Angel, giving my arm a squeeze.
We walked back out of Nit’s hotel and across the road to the shop. Angel picked up a little green plastic basket and proceeded to fill it with shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, two tooth brushes, a bottle of water, coffee, sugar, milk, a bottle of orange, a bottle of Sprite, two bottles of beer, some sandwiches, cakes, crisps, nuts, chocolate and mints. In fact, everything we would need for a week’s holiday. We carried it all back to the hotel in three carrier bags.
Because of the overall condition of the hotel I wasn’t expecting very much from the room. I wasn’t disappointed. It was a dump! It was very sparse and hadn’t been decorated since the hotel had been built. There was an old wooden wardrobe and an even older double bed. The bed had one white sheet over it and two folded towels that felt like sandpaper. There was a little bar of soap in a white and pink wrapper. The walls were painted yellow and some tatty and torn orange curtains hung over the narrow window from a bamboo pole. There was a cracked sink in the bathroom with a lot of dead mosquitoes in it. The water in the toilet was brown and there was a cheap rubber shower hose hanging off one of the white tiled walls. A single hole in the floor gave the shower water an escape. It wasn’t the most beautiful room that I had ever stayed in, but it wasn’t the worst either. The single fan over the bed moved the warm air around the room.
Angel slipped off her leather jacket and then took off her bra.
“There is no TV” I said, stating the obvious and trying to offer some excuse as to why I was watching my new friend undress.
Angel tugged down her mini skirt and rolled down her fishnet stockings. When she pulled down her panties I saw that the Chemotherapy had taken her pubic hair too. I tried to do a sympathetic look by tilting my head to one side and backed it up with a head shake. Other than that her body was perfect and the first naked one that I had ever seen. Well, the first naked lady I had seen who wasn’t already dead. I had a funny feeling between my legs and, although I’d never really had sex before, I knew what the feeling was.
“You come shower, Sa-teve?”
I immediately thought ‘No’, but somehow I just said “Yes.” I took my clothes off and joined Angel in the bathroom. The water was warm and the shampoo and body wash smelled clean. Angel washed my body in a very thorough way. Even between my toes and between my legs. These were areas that I didn’t even like to wash! I was amazed at how kind hearted Angel was. I returned the kindness and rubbed some shampoo into her head. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as professional at washing somebody and I got a lot of shampoo in her eyes. If she had hair I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I should have just used the body wash. I’m not sure if it was the warm soapy water, Angel’s soft hands or even just the fact that I was naked with a real live woman, but the heavy dull throbbing between my legs grew into an erection. I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I told Angel that I was sorry. I dried myself, wrapped the towel around my waist and cleaned my teeth. I left Angel in the bathroom and I sat on the bed and waited for her. When she came back into the room with the towel wrapped around her I couldn’t help but stare at her again. I hate to admit it, because I was so much in love with Pom, but there was definitely a sexual chemistry going on between Angel and myself. My chemistry was still poking out from the gap in my towel.
“Sa-teve, are you virgin?”
“No! No, no, no I’m not. Well, it depends really. I made love to a dead lady once.”
“You had sex with a dead girl?”
“Well, I didn’t know that she was dead.”
“How you not know this?”
“She was a ghost. I thought she was alive when we made love, but she had already been dead for over a year. She taught me how to do it.”
“I think this dream sure.”
I just shrugged my shoulders. Not everyone believes in ghosts.
“You ever do with real lady who still alive?”
“I nearly have a couple of times. I’ve touched some breasts and once a girl touched me down below, but it sort of just went off in her hand. I think that counts though.”
“No. That not count. I think you very nice man with gentle heart, but you too shy everything. I think people take advantage.”
“No. I don’t think so. I just like to help people.”
“I teach you something about sex.”
Angel whipped her towel off and pushed me back onto the bed. She tugged my towel until it came off. I’m not really an expert about sex, but I know that we had it that night. She sat on me and I felt my penis go inside her. It was hot and wet and it felt really good. It almost felt as if her vagina was sucking on my penis. When she started moving I fired my special man sauce inside her. I couldn’t help it. The whole thing only lasted for a minute. I didn’t know how long it was supposed to last, but I could see by the disappointment on Angel’s face that she was expecting it to last longer than that. She smiled at me and stroked my face.
“Never mind, tee rak. You just need practice.”
She called me ‘Tee rak’. In Thai that meant ‘Darling’. I liked Angel, I liked her a lot. But now I was worried that she was falling in love with me. I was in love with Pom and this was only going to complicate the situation. I didn’t know how long Angel had left to live and I wasn’t going to make her last few days or weeks miserable ones. I decided to try and let her down gently, but I didn’t know how I was going to do that and, now that I wasn’t a monk anymore, I didn’t think that Buddha was going to bother helping me. She cuddled up to me in bed and it felt wonderful. I had an overwhelming feeling of wellbeing. I watched Angel fall asleep in my arms. She looked very comfortable and relaxed in my com
pany. Her breathing changed as she drifted off. I fell asleep with a smile on my face. Maybe I was a lot better at human relationships than I had given myself credit for.
The next morning we showered and dressed together. Angel looked me up and down and slowly shook her head.
“Why you dress like this, tee rak?”
“Like what?”
“Like you have problem in your brain.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“In Thailand only people who are mai sabai (Not well) in brain, dress like this.”
“Oh! These aren’t my clothes. Well, the sandals are. But everything was given to me by the people in the village where I was a monk.”
“This is true? Really! You were a monk?”
“Yes. And I had no clothes to wear when I left so they gave me some. I know that they are a bit small, but nobody seemed to notice.”
“You joking me. Everybody notice. Everyone think you have problem in brain. I make you look good fashion now and after breakfast we go shopping for clothes. You very good man Sa-teven, but you not take care of yourself very good.”
Angel searched inside her bag and retrieved a pair of scissors. She cut the arms off my shirt just above the elbow. She cut the collar off around the neck and then she cut the legs off the trousers just above the knee. I looked at myself in the mirror and it did look a lot better. I have seen people wearing clothes like that. Angel did have an eye for fashion and she had made me look very fashionable and, if I say so myself, more young and handsome.
We went out for breakfast and then we found an indoor market that sold everything. Angel picked out some shirts, T-shirts, shorts and a pair of blue flip flops. I was very proud of my new clothes and I looked great. They all fitted me and Angel was smiling a lot, so I know that she liked them too. By the time we got back to the car at Nit’s Hotel it was already 11 am. I couldn’t remember what time that Jack Sparrow had told me to leave for Bangkok, but I knew that it was before 11 am. It didn’t really matter. I knew that I would be able to make the time up. When Angel got in the car she sniffed and pulled a face.
“Car very dirty. It smell bad. You smoke Ganja in car?”
I didn’t know what brand of cigarettes ‘Ganja’ was, because I didn’t smoke anything.
“I don’t smoke, but my friend Jack Sparrow smokes cigarettes. He makes them himself by rolling tobacco in little papers. I think he is trying to save money.”
Angel had a good look around inside the car. It did look a mess. There were empty coke and beer cans, old food and sweet wrappers and lots of empty packets of crisp.
“OK. We go clean car first and then go Bangkok.”
“Where do we go to clean car?”
“I think better I drive.”
We got back out of the car and swapped seats. The thing that I had noticed about Angel was that she always looked very attractive and sexy, her make-up was always fantastic, but she always seemed to know what she was doing. I think that she was a strong character. She could make decisions and that always impressed me. Sometimes I could make a decision, but it always took me a long time and it usually turned out to be wrong. I just wasn’t a lucky decision maker. Angel seemed to know exactly where she was going and drove out of the city centre and pulled into a car wash. We had a coffee while we waited for six people from Myanmar to wash, clean and polish the car inside and out. It still looked old and tatty, but at least it was clean. Angel asked me if I wanted to drive to Bangkok and I told her that I had only learnt to drive on my way to Chiang Mai and I explained how my friend Jack had taught me. Angel decided that she had better drive.
“How long you know Jack Sparrow, Sa-teven?”
“I only met him when he stopped to give me a lift to Bangkok.”
“He not take you Bangkok. He bring you Chiang Mai.”
“Yes, because he had some business here first and he said that it was on the way.”
“Not on way. Long way from Bangkok in different direction. I think Jack Sparrow not good man. I don’t like him.”
“You haven’t met him Angel. And he did lend me the car to get to Bangkok when he got tied up with another business meeting. I think he has a good heart.”
Angel shrugged her shoulders. I could see that she didn’t agree with me. After a few seconds she glanced at me and smiled. She patted me on the knee.
“You very good man Sa-teve. You gentle heart too much. Oh my Buddha! I can’t believe that I have sex with a monk!”
“I’m not a monk anymore.”
“I think in your heart you always be same like monk. You have a heart same like angel. You lovely too much, jing jing (Really).”
I thought that I was probably a better judge of character than Angel, but there was no point in starting an argument. I really liked Angel and I loved being in her company. Now the only thing that the car smelt of was her lovely sweet perfume.
The radio in the car didn’t work, but that turned out to be a good thing because Angel started singing and she was really good. She sang like an angel. She sang old Thai love songs, which were really sad. I always cried at sad songs. That was the main reason why I couldn’t be a ‘Blues’ singer. I fell asleep in the car listening to Angel singing about some lover who had broken her heart and slept with her best friend, but if he asked her to forgive him, she would. A lot of Thai songs are like a lot of ‘Country & Western’ songs; all about broken hearts and loneliness! All these songs could have been the soundtrack to my life.
I was awoken by Angel shaking me. The car was stationary and parked in the shade of an old tree on a dusty piece of dry land at the side of the road.
“Are you hungry, tee rak?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep.”
“Now that you awake, are you hungry?”
“I still don’t know. I’ve just woken up.”
“Come on. I think you hungry sure.”
I looked out of the car window and saw a small row of ramshackle roadside restaurants. Each one had a home-made barbeque outside the front. Fish and chickens were cooking in the heat and smoke. As soon as I got out of the car I realized that I was indeed very hungry and the slow cooked chicken smelled great. We had chicken and fish with sticky rice and spicy Thai salad. It was all washed down with two super cold bottles of coke poured over a glassful of ice. I felt refreshed and well fed. I asked Angel if she wanted me to take a turn at driving, but she declined. I think that she really liked driving and, to be honest, I didn’t really think that I was very good at it. I needed more practice. It was another scorching hot day in Thailand. We drove for another hour before Angel’s mobile started to ring. She fished it from the small pocket in her mini skirt and she was speaking in Thai to various members of her family. Her brother had died when he was driving home drunk on their mother’s motorbike. They wanted Angel to go home and help with the funeral. When Angel finished talking she closed the phone and breathed a deep sigh.
“I’m very sorry about your brother.”
“How do you know about this, tee rak?”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but hear you talking on the phone. I’m very sorry.”
“Wow! You speak Thai.”
“Yes. I thought that you knew.”
“No! Why would I know something like this unless you tell me?”
“Oh! Well, I speak Thai. I can read and write it too. I can drive a car and a motorbike, but those are all the skills that I have. I cannot do anything else. So now you know everything.”
Angel just smiled.
“Tee rak, I think we have to go to my mama’s house and see family. We have to wait until my brother is burnt. Maybe three or four day. Can we go?”
“Yes, of course we must go! Bangkok will have to wait for a few days. Your family is more important. I can tell Pom that I love he
r anytime. It’s not like they are planning to get married this week or anything!”
Angel smiled again and reached across and gave my testicles a gentle squeeze. That was another Thai custom that I remembered from the bars in Phuket, but I think it’s only the women who do it. I don’t think that the men do it to each other. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it seems like a very friendly gesture.
“Where does your mama live?” I asked as an afterthought.
“Udon Thani. But not really Udon Thani. But near not far.”
“She lives near Udon Thani?”
“Yes.”
“Is that near to Bangkok?”
“Maybe 500 or 600 kilometres.”
“Oh! OK.”
I didn’t know how far a kilometre was, let alone 500 or 600 of them. I knew that it wasn’t the same distance as a mile, but then again I didn’t know how far a mile was either. Anyway, five or six hours later we were in a small village in Udon Thani, but not really Udon Thani, but near not far. It was a good job that Angel was driving. I would have never have found the place. Despite Angel’s description of the village name and where its location was, I found out that it was called
Ban Tung and it was just south of Udon Thani. We stopped at a Seven Eleven shop before we reached the village. Angel explained that there is no Seven Eleven in the village yet, so we had to buy what we needed before we got there. I told her that I was used to living in a jungle without shops and stores, but Angel wanted to stock up on provisions anyway.
It was a small village. The roads were little more than mud tracks, although the main road did have some hard core pressed into the mud. The houses were old wooden houses on stilts. Under each house there seemed to be young men asleep in slowly swinging hammocks. Dogs, chickens, ducks and cats all shared the space under the houses along with rusted old farm machinery and motorbikes, which looked like they had been put together from several makes of motorbike. I didn’t see any old men or, if I did I didn’t notice them, but I saw lots of old women working, cooking, eating, talking or just looking after young children and babies. This seemed to be a picture of life in villages all over Thailand, away from the big cities.
