The Flower Girl

by Lilburne, Guy

  “Yes, very beautiful place here. I come here a lot to think. This is a special place to me.”

  I was falling hopelessly in love with Pin. I already knew every contour of her body. I knew the shape of her eyes and the lines around her mouth when she smiled. For the first time in my life I really knew what it meant to be in love.

  “What happened when Dean woke up Pin?” Now that I knew that Dean was no longer part of her life, I was looking forward to finding out how it ended. He didn’t sound a very nice bloke to me. In fact his wife and kids all sounded awful. Pin was far too good to be involved with people like that.

  “Dean come on motorbike and find me. He dragged me back to his room and beat me very bad. He so angry. He speak with his wife on phone and he cannot calm down. After he beat me, he say he sorry again. He want to have sex with me but I not want, but I cannot stop him. He still say he love me and he will get divorced in England and sell house and come and live with me, but I not want him now. He make me too scare and now I know he not good person. I just didn’t know what to do, Sa-teven, so I just lay there and try not to cry too much and try not to make him angry. In night time Dean sleep, but I stay awake all night and pray to Buddha to help me. In the morning Dean say he is very sorry that he hurt me. He tell me that he have stress, but he want to stay with me. I had brought Dean to this spot many times before and we have picnic. When Dean dress on that morning he say that he want to come here to relax, so we come on motorbike and we sit here where we sit now.”

  I looked around. I could almost feel his presence and I felt a shiver along my spine. Pin laughed when she looked at my face.

  “Not to worry Sa-teven. He not come back here.”

  “So what happened Pin?”

  “We sit here and he start to get angry with me again. He say that I ruin his life and make him big problem with his wife. He start fighting me again and by accident I grab the gold chain that I buy him and it snapped off his neck and fly in the air. He look but cannot find. Then he very angry and say many bad words to me. He picked up that rock by the tree and hit me on the head with it.”

  “Jesus! He hit you on the head with a rock?”

  “Yes. That big rock under the tree.”

  “How do you know it was that actual rock?”

  “I just know. I see it.”

  “That’s a big rock, and he just picked it up and hit you on the head with it?”

  “Yes. It make my head bleed and I scream. He slapped my face and dragged me to the edge of the grass and throw me down into the sea and then he run away.”

  “Oh my God Pin! He hit you with a rock and threw you off the edge of a cliff into the sea. He could have killed you.”

  “Yes. I hurt very bad.”

  “What happened to him? Did you tell the police?”

  “Nothing happened to him. He went back home to England and I never speak to police.”

  “Wow! Are you not scared that he will come back? He sounds like a monster.”

  “No. I am not scare. He know he do a bad thing and he will never come back.”

  “Pin, I am so shocked about what happened to you. I have never heard such a bad story. Are you OK now?”

  “Yes, Sa-teven. Now I am very OK, because I find you. You have pure heart and you love me sure.”

  “Yes, I do. I’d do anything for you.”

  “Thank you Sa-teven. I trust you very much with everything.”

  “I would never do anything bad to you Pin. I’m so sorry about that bastard Dean, who hurt you so much and treated you so badly.”

  “I know tee rak (darling). You good man for me.”

  Pin’s story kept going around in my head. I couldn’t believe that anyone could hurt her like that. She was such a gentle creature. I was angry and sad at the same time and I couldn’t stop a tear from rolling down my face. Pin saw my tears. She smiled one of her beautiful smiles and softly kissed my tears away. I wanted to protect her and love her for the rest of my life and I told her so.

  “I know, Sa-teven” she whispered.

  “Pin, I don’t want to stay in this place anymore. Suddenly it just doesn’t feel so beautiful to me. It just feels sad. Can we go somewhere else please?”

  “Yes. We go somewhere else. You choose.”

  “And Pin, I really don’t want to talk about Dean, ever again. I never want you to mention his name to me ever again. I hate him.”

  “No! Don’t hate anyone tee rak. But we not talk about him anymore.” Pin smiled and kissed me again.

  We rode the bike to Kata Beach and we walked hand in hand along the sand. It was just perfect and I felt closer to Pin than I had ever felt to anybody. I knew that I would never let her go and I was going to make her life as perfect as I could from now on. We watched the sun go down again and it was beautiful. Pin seemed more happy and relaxed than she had been before. We held hands a lot and we walked around a lot. We didn’t do anything special other than just being together, but it felt perfect. We found a lovely little restaurant in Kata Town called The Two Chefs and we had the most fantastic steaks. A lot of the staff were looking at us and they smiled every time I saw them looking. They were sort of sympathetic, gentle smiles. They must have thought that we were married or something and I’m sure that they would have assumed that I was the father of Pin’s expected child. We went back to the hotel feeling happy and contented. We made love all night. I know a lot of people say that, but I really mean it and I am not exaggerating. We really did make love all night. I lost count of the amount of times we actually did it. Suddenly, I was a different man. I was a confident man. I was a happy man. I was a man who knew that his life had just changed forever. We fell asleep in each other’s arms and I held the baby inside her in the palm of my hand. I was going to love this baby, as if it was my own.

  When I awoke in the morning Pin had, once again, already left me and once again I couldn’t wait to see her again. I suddenly felt as if we had plans to make. Plans for our future together.

  Chapter 8

  Looking for Pin

  I did my usual daily routine of swim, shower and breakfast. I had decided today that I was going to take Pin shopping and buy everything new for the baby. I wanted her to know that I was serious about planning our future together. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when she wasn’t sitting on my motorbike as usual. Without her being there I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I thought that maybe she might be late, so I found some shade at the front of the hotel and waited for her. I waited for over an hour and there was still no sign of Pin, so I decided to have a walk around just in case I might see her. I walked around all over the place, but I couldn’t find Pin anywhere. We had no mobile phones and I didn’t know where she lived. So I just had to wait for Pin to come to my hotel, but the day wasn’t going to be the same without her. I waited around the hotel reception for hours until well into the afternoon. It was boring sitting around and waiting, so by mid-afternoon I decided to take my motorbike and go for a ride.

  “If you see my friend come here for me, then please tell her that I have gone out on my bike and I will meet her tonight at 8pm” I said to the girl behind reception. The receptionist smiled and wai’d to me, but I wasn’t sure if she actually understood everything that I had just said to her. I put on some more factor 50 sunblock and went out on the bike. I went to all the places that I had previously been with Pin. I was just hoping I’d find her in one of these places, but I didn’t. I wasn’t worried about her. I was just angry with myself for not making better meeting arrangements. It was an empty sort of day and, as the day dragged on, I felt more and more lonely without the girl who had stolen my heart away.

  I went back to the hotel in the late afternoon and decided to sleep before I met Pin later in the evening. It hadn’t been arranged, but I just knew that I would find her selling her flower
s. I decided to sleep, but I couldn’t. I was getting worried now. I was panicking in case Pin had changed her mind about me, or maybe she had had an accident. I didn’t even know her full name or where she lived, so I couldn’t check with the hospital or the police. I tried to tell myself that I was worrying about nothing, but I just couldn’t shake off the feeling that something bad was about to happen to me and Pin. Well, something bad was about to happen to my heart anyway. I found myself just watching the minutes on my watch tick by. I waited until 7:40pm and then I had a shower and got dressed. It was a different girl at the reception desk, but I asked her if any message had been left for me. She just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I asked her if she knew if my friend had come to the hotel while I was out on my bike, but again she just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I thanked her and went out to look for Pin.

  My heart sank a bit further when, once again, she wasn’t sitting on my bike. I walked around Patak Road just hoping to see her, but she was nowhere to be seen. I started to realise that she had dumped me. I couldn’t understand it, because I thought that we had a real connection. I know that she didn’t love me the same way that I loved her, but I was certain that she did like me. Now, I don’t cry easily, well except for when I hurt myself or I’m feeling really sad. But now I was feeling really, really sad and the tears started filling my eyes. A lot of the Thai ladies who I walked passed saw me crying and they all said the same thing.

  “Sa bai dee mai ka?” (Are you ok?) I thought it must mean ‘are you lost?’ so I just shook my head. They were all very nice to me and their smiles were sad and sympathetic. A few of them touched my arm or rubbed my hand. I put my hands together in a wai and thanked them. I was blowing snot bubbles out of my nose. I wished my Dad was there. Not because I wanted him to see that I could blow snot bubbles. I was just missing him. I made my way to the tables and chairs in the street outside one of the bars. I sat at the same table where I had sat the very first time that I had seen Pin. I sat and waited for her. I just kept looking along the street hoping that she would come walking down it. A couple of times I thought that I had seen her, but I was wrong and she didn’t come walking along the road. A couple of bar girls came and asked me if I wanted a beer, but I didn’t. Then a bigger lady came.

  “Hey! Cheap Charlie! If you not buy beer then you cannot sit here.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” I got up and wandered back to the hotel. It was already midnight and I knew that I wasn’t going to see Pin tonight.

  I asked the girl at reception if Pin had been to the hotel looking for me, but again she just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I had bought myself some chocolate and a packet of sweets from the Seven Eleven shop so I sat on my bed and ate the lot. I watched an old black and white English film (The Colditz Story with Chinese subtitles) on the TV and at some stage I fell asleep, before John Mills could escape.

  The next day was like the previous day, but I felt even more desperate. As each minute passed I was more and more certain that something was wrong and I knew that I just had to find Pin. I searched all day with a lot more determination and asked everyone I could if they knew Pin, but everyone just shook their heads and said no.

  After dark I went back to the bar where I had first seen Pin selling the flowers. I saw the big Thai lady who had called me a Cheap Charlie the night before. I sat at her bar and bought a beer. I bought her one too and she smiled.

  “Maybe you are not Cheap Charlie after all” she laughed.

  “Oh thank God! You speak good English.”

  “Yes. I was married to a farang. How do you think I got the money to buy the bar?”

  I just smiled at her. I didn’t really know what to say. She clinked her bottle against mine.

  “Chok dee ka” (Good luck) she said and I guessed that must have meant ‘Cheers’.

  “Cheers” I said and clinked her bottle back. But, as she was just about to put it in her mouth, I caused it to bang against her teeth and spill some of her beer on her breasts, which I had noticed, by the way, were bigger than the usual Thai ladies breasts.

  “Sorry.”

  “Mai pen rai ka” (Never mind). She took a tissue from under the bar and wiped her breasts dry. I thought that I should really be happy sitting in a bar like this. There was loud music and lots of pretty girls wearing not much. People were drinking and relaxing and talking. Games were being played on the bar tops and there seemed to be an awful lot of flirting going on. I thought that I should be happy, but I wasn’t. I was missing Pin more than I had ever missed anyone and I had a horrible feeling that she didn’t want to see me again.

  “What you name?”

  “Sa-teven. I mean Steven.”

  “Hello Sa-teven. I am Nui.”

  “Hello Nui.”

  “Where you stay?”

  “I’m at the Karon Whale Hotel. It’s just around the corner here, at the end of a cul-de-sac.”

  “Yes, I know it. You like?”

  “Yes. It is very nice.”

  “How long you stay?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Why you look so sad. Come on, you’re on holiday. Enjoy yourself. You want one of my ladies tonight?”

  “No thanks. I have a lady or at least I used to have a lady.”

  “You had Thai lady?”

  “Yes.”

  “She work bar?”

  “No, absolutely not. Sorry, no offence. No. She doesn’t work in a bar. Her name is Pin. She is The Flower Girl.”

  There was a long awkward silence. I got the feeling that I had said something wrong or something.

  “You know Pin, The Flower Girl?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You her boyfriend?”

  “Well, yes I am. Well, I thought I was, but I don’t know what’s happened now and that is why I’m so sad. I just can’t seem to forget her or get her out of my mind.”

  “You are the boyfriend of Pin. The Flower Girl with the baby?”

  “Well, pregnant you mean?”

  “Yes, pregnant.”

  “Have you seen her?” I asked, but she didn’t answer my question. She just asked another of her own.

  “Where did you last see her?”

  “She took me to see a special place near a cliff edge overlooking the sea on the road between Karon Beach and Rawai Beach. She said it was special to her, but she told me some things that made me very sad and very angry. So it is not a special place to me. I have been back there to look for her.”

  I can’t really say what it was, but I definitely sensed a change in the big woman behind the bar. Maybe something was getting lost in translation, but we sort of just stopped talking and started staring at each other.

  “What?” I said and shrugged my shoulders. She again didn’t answer me and spoke in Thai to one of the young Thai girls, who was wearing the smallest dress I had ever seen. The girl pulled a mobile phone from out of her bra and handed it to the big lady. She smiled at me and punched a number into the phone with her finger. She was talking in Thai and trying not to look at me, but her eyes kept flicking to see what I was doing, I had an overwhelming feeling that she was talking about me. I was hoping she was talking to Pin, or at least to somebody who knew Pin, and she might get the message that I was looking for her. When the big lady finished on the phone, and it was safely tucked back inside the young girl’s bra, we resumed our silent staring match. There was something very weird about this and I decided that, after I finished my beer, I would find another bar. A more friendly bar.

  “Have you got a toilet here?” I asked, trying to force a smile.

  “Why you want toilet?”

  Wow! I haven’t been asked that question since I was at primary school.

  “I want a wee. Pshh, pshhh.” I did the sound effects because I was
pretty certain now that things were getting lost in translation.

  “You come back and finish beer and pay bill?”

  “Yes, of course. I just want the toilet.” Actually I wasn’t desperate for the toilet, but I just wanted to do something to break the awkward silence. The lady turned around and pointed along a narrow footpath that went between the bars into an alley way.

  “Toilet up there” she said. I was pretty sure that she didn’t like me very much and I think that she thought I was going to run away and not pay my bar bill.

  “Don’t worry. I will only be a couple of minutes. I will come back and pay. I promise.”

  “Yes, you come straight back here. I wait.”

  There was something very strange in her manner and I just didn’t know why.

  I made my way along the footpath and through the other bars. Actually, they all looked a lot more friendly then the one I had just been sitting in. The toilet was dark and smelly and I was relieved that I only wanted a wee. I would hate to have to risk sitting down in this place and I noticed that there was no toilet paper anyway. I was going to wash my hands, but the sink and the little bit of withered soap looked dirty and disgusting. I thought it might be more hygienic not to wash my hands on this occasion. When I came out of the toilet and started to walk back towards the bar I saw the big lady talking to two uniformed policemen. My stomach turned over and I instinctively knew that she was talking about me. She was quite animated and waving her arms around. She pointed towards the toilet and I ducked out of sight. I quickly ducked into one of the other bars, unnoticed, and I sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The bar was packed and busy so nobody noticed me. I watched the two policemen walk past me and go inside the toilet. They quickly came out again and went back to the bar lady and had a further talk to her. They spoke on their police radios and put their sunglasses back on, even though it was already well after dark. Then they got onto motorbikes and rode off with red lights flashing.