by Frank Kusy
Later that evening, I made the acquaintance of a hilarious young Canadian called Dave, who had a never-ending stream of funny stories. Only that afternoon, for instance, he had been ensnared by a particularly clever Thai prostitute.
‘Yeah,’ he recounted. ‘I’d been down to the beach, and my ears were blocked up from swimming. So I decided to visit a local doctor to have them syringed. Well, I was waiting at the bus-stop, and this very smart-looking Thai chick called me over. She had a map of Bangkok, and said she was going there in a few days and could I recommend a good hotel, since she was from Malaysia and would be kinda lost in the busy capital. So we chatted for a bit, and I happened to mention I was going to the doctor to have my ears syringed. “What luck!” she said. “I’m a doctor actually!” I looked at her sideways and said, ‘Oh, are you?’ And she replied, ‘Yes, I could make you feel much better!”’
Dave’s crab dish looked nice and I asked him what it was. ‘Oh, it’s BARBECUED CRAP, it says so in the menu. I’ve had an awful lot of crap here, it’s delicious. Here, you wanna try some?’
I shook my head dubiously. It was too dark to see. Maybe it wasn’t crab after all.
‘I tell you, man, you got to try stuff out here,’ said Dave breezily. ‘I go for the most outlandish dishes I can find. So far, I’ve had POTATO POO MARY in Delhi, PIG LEG IN HOT BOWEL SOUP in Bangkok, YUM BEAN in Kanchanaburi, and – my personal favourite – HORSE BALLS in Pattaya.’
I studied the red-cheeked youth with the lopsided grin before me. What was the son of a Californian surfer chick and a Canadian banker doing in Thailand?
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he said when I posed the question. ‘I had to get out of India.’
‘Why did you have to get out of India?’
‘Well, I was up north in Manali, and one of those crazy street doctors gave me these foul-tasting black pills to cure my bad back. A couple of hours later, I started farting helplessly and it just wouldn’t stop! I emptied the restaurant I was sitting in, no problem, and then my girlfriend left me because I stank out the room. This went on for two days, man, and people started crossing the road to avoid me. I was like this human pariah-dog with a red-raw arsehole and an aura of dead farts. Cured my back, though!’
I laughed, and fished around in my bag for a card.
‘Yeah, I know those crazy street doctors in Manali,’ I said. ‘One of them tried to sell me a “love potion” with this endorsement:
This elixir benefits a man, can after use keep prolonged company with many a fair sex without feeling any sense of fatigue. He will have muscular energy like an elephant, he will be inflammable like fire, will have sweetness of voice like a peacock’s, and will be noble like a horse. His treasure of human potential fluid will be added in plenty.
Dave gave a smirk, and then introduced me to his new bag, which he had just bought in Bangkok.
‘You get a big bag like this,’ he said, ‘and you just wanna tell people about it. It’s big. It’s huge. You know, there are bags that hold a lot. And then there are BIG bags that hold everything, and there’s still a little room left to throw other stuff in.’
‘You like it, then?’ I teased him.
‘Like it?’ enthused Dave, the surfer dude in him overcoming his earlier more ‘bankerly’ persona. ‘I LOVE it. It’s big. It’s that big. And it’s awesome, you know. It’s big and it’s awesome. It opens up into three sections, and I’ve still got a third capacity there – I can make it bigger still if I want to. I mean, God, it’s half as big as I am now, and yet I’ve still got more capacity! It’s not that I want to make it bigger, it’s just that it has the POTENTIAL. If I want to, then I CAN. All other bags are nowhere. This bag is IT. This bag is the future. It is the future, right?’
I grinned to myself, and thought how nice it would be to travel on with someone like Dave. Innocent and naïve, ever-eager and curious, he reminded me of Kevin from my India days. But, as was so common with travellers on the road, he was going one way and I was going the other. We did the customary swapping of phone numbers and addresses, and thought we’d never see each other again.
We were wrong.
*
It was on the bus out of Samui – thinking that I’d pretty much covered the island – that I ran into Clifford.
‘I get vibes about places,’ said Clifford, his triple fat chins wobbling knowingly. ‘I’m a lucky kind of a guy. I get instinctive vibes about places. I have my finger on the six pulses of the island. I can feel which energies are there and which aren’t, and then I can apply the appropriate acupuncture to equalise them. What do you think of that?’
I didn’t know what I thought about that. All that I knew was that I was sharing a six hour bus journey with a lunatic.
‘So…err…what brought you to Thailand?’
‘I HAD to come, man. I was so stressed out back home!’ Clifford’s huge bulk leant forward, emanating a powerful aroma of mixed sweat and alcohol. ‘It’s just the Western way of life, man,’ he said. ‘I mean, whenever you’re in the West, you’re in a job that you hate, you go home to a relationship that’s not working quite right, quite right, and immediately, you’re just stressed out, you know? You just can’t get away from it – you’re so stressed out all the time!’
I assumed a look of sympathy. ‘Oh dear. What stresses you out the most?’
‘Relationships,’ said Clifford. ‘I got these three Thai girlfriends – yes, three – and I’m trying to keep them all happy, but it’s HARD, it’s hard work, and sometimes I sit in my hut and I put back a bottle of whisky a day and I’m banging my head against the wall.”
‘It sounds like you’re pretty stressed out over here as well!’ I told him.
But Clifford wasn’t listening. ‘Yeah, you know, you’ve got to work HARD. You’ve got to give them – the ladies – a bit of dignity and a bit of space. You’ve got to forget the jealousies. I’m not a sexually jealous person. That destroys relationships!”
My look of sympathy was wilting. ‘That’s bullshit,’ I told him. ‘Why don’t you stick to one girl and make her happy?
Clifford still wasn’t listening. ‘Jealousy is “negativeness”, man,’ he told me. ‘I am only interested in positive vibes.’
It was alright for Clifford. Clifford was not a sexually jealous person. I was. Not a day went past now without me imagining Nicky in the arms of another man. I was particularly concerned about Ian, the most long-lasting of her ex’s. In her last letter to me – the one I read with increasing anxiety – Nicky had hardly talked about anything but Ian.
‘I’ve been helping Ian prune his roses,’ read the pertinent passage. ‘And I came across him one day up a ladder – he was refurbishing his conservatory. “Ian,” I said. “If you fall off that ladder, can Frank and I have your house?” You could have knocked me sideways by his response. “Well”, he said, “I haven’t updated my will in five years, so by rights you still own half of my estate. I was rather hoping that if things didn’t work out with you and Frank, you might come back to me.” Ha ha, wasn’t he funny?’
I didn’t think he was funny at all. What was Ian doing sniffing round Nicky in my absence? And why had she made a joke of it, instead of rebutting him rudely? Ten thousand miles of distance was turning me into a green-eyed monster, with Ian firmly in my sights as a wily, two-faced, scheming Iago.
Chapter 12
It’s my Job
Back in Bangkok, two pieces of correspondence were waiting for me. One of them was marked ‘Urgent!’
‘DON’T COME HOME YET!’ screamed the telegram from Paula. ‘IMPORTANT NEWS. CALL ME!’
Across the road was an international call centre. I went straight in.
‘Something’s come up, Frank,’ my perky publisher told me when the connection went through. ‘We’re in negotiations with a big distributer in the States. They want a book on Thailand. They’ve ordered 10,000 advance copies!’
I blinked. ‘Thailand? I’ve already do
ne Thailand!’
‘No, you haven’t. You’ve done Bangkok, and a bit of the North, and a couple of southern islands. What about the rest of the North, and the West and the East?’
She had a point. The Trailfinders tour had been exceedingly lax in covering Thailand.
‘But I want to go home!’ I wailed. ‘I haven’t had a fresh pair of socks in three months!’
‘Blow your socks,’ said Paula matter-of-factly. ‘This is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss – that distributor is also taking 5000 copies of Bangkok to Bali. Look, I’ll make you an offer that I’ve made no other author before, and probably won’t do again. Ten grand advance. Take it or leave it.’
Ten thousand pounds? Ten thousand pounds? My mind was reeling.
‘Err…l’ll take it, Paula,’ I said. ‘That’ll buy me an awful lot of socks.’
*
The only thing that stopped me dancing out the call centre and singing ‘Hallelujah!’ was the second piece of correspondence, which I now opened. It was from Nicky, and far from being all cool and distant – as I had been expecting – it was full or warmth and joy and excitement about my homecoming.
‘My dearest Frank,’ it read. ‘I cannot WAIT until you come home. I am writing this in bed and imagining your arms around me and cuddling up to the small of my back. I’ve been imagining quite a few other things too, but seeing as the Sominex hasn’t worked, if I start writing them down I shan’t get any sleep at all, and it’s 3.30am already!
I can’t begin to describe how desolate I felt when I had to leave you at Denpasar. The feelings manifested themselves as a physical pain, as if something had reached between my ribs with a claw-like hand and wrenched part of my chest away with its talon. I wept buckets on the plane to Jakarta, and I couldn’t even feel embarrassed. I really didn’t care what anybody thought – all I knew was half my life was still in Bali, and I felt like shit. You can forget facing nasty classes, mobs with bricks, killer horses or drunks with bottles – but to face leaving you for six weeks was the hardest thing of all. I don’t know how we will do it Frank, but I’m NEVER going through that again.
Be sure that I think of you in all that I think, say and do, and I love you with my whole heart and soul (not to mention my naughty bits!) Take good care, my love – I can’t wait to share my love, my life and my bed with you again. See you soon! Nicky xxxxxxxxx
p.s. I hope you get this letter. I didn’t have the heart to tell you all this earlier because a) I missed you too much; b) I was very ill in hospital.’
I didn’t think twice. I dashed back in the call centre.
‘Hello? Nicky? Are you alright? I just read your letter. What’s this about you being sick and in hospital?’
There was a pause as the airwaves struggled to connect us.
‘Oh, what a lovely surprise, Frank!’ Her voice sounded very small and timid. ‘Yes, I didn’t want to worry you, but I got sick right off the plane from Bali. I think I got bit by something in that beehive wig they gave me in Menyali. By the time I got to Heathrow, my guts had turned to water.’
‘Is that why you didn’t write me?’ I said a little sulkily. ‘You could have dropped me a line earlier, for God’s sake! I was imagining all sorts of unpleasant scenarios.’
‘Well, it didn’t get much more unpleasant,’ said Nicky, her voice turning snippy. ‘I put off going to the doctor’s for as long as I could, which was pretty silly of me, but then I collapsed in a recital I was giving for Mansell Bebb from the Philharmonic orchestra. Drugged up the eyeballs, and screaming with pain, I was whisked off in to an isolation ward in Tooting.’
‘And?’
‘And they found a huge mass of immovable tissue in my left side. Greg – you know dear Greg – asked me if I was having a baby! I didn’t find this particularly funny and told him through gritted teeth that if I was, it’d be a bit small, so it’d better hang on till you came back cos I wasn’t bloody having one without you. He grinned, and said “You two are gonna be great together!”’
I began to relax. Nicky still loved me. Everything was going to be alright.
‘I’m so sorry, darling. So what was it, then?’
‘What, the mass? Oh, the doc said it was a blockage or a kidney stone, and put me on penicillin. I’ve got a slight pain in my back even now, but hey, wink wink, I’m sure you can straighten that out. Only 22 hours to go, eh? Not long now!’
At this point, I wished I could back twenty minutes in time and take back my conversation with Paula.
‘Welllll,’ I said slowly. ‘You’re not going to like this. But something’s come up. It’s my job…’
It’s my job.
What did I mean, ‘It’s my job?’ I found myself reflecting on this as – with a heavy heart – I put the phone down on a very disappointed Nicky. What on earth had possessed me to sign up for yet another six-week jaunt round Asia when I should be hurtling back to my loved one after a hundred days in the wilderness?
The question was, what would I be hurtling back to? Okay, a few days of bliss and rapturous sex, but then what? All but a thousand pounds of my advance money for the Bangkok Bali book was gone, and in a few short months I would be penniless again. This new Thailand gig would set me up for a year – and (even Nicky had to accept this) give me the funds for our long awaited wedding.
‘It’s my job,’ had however a much deeper and more worrying meaning. Ever since I had left university, I had found the standard ‘nine to five’ world of work impossible to function in. I was great at interviews – blagged my way into a number of employments for which I had little or no experience – but after the standard three month trial period I either got bored and wanted to move on, or I was sacked for sleeping on the job. On one famous occasion, I had tired of being an assistant branch manager of an insurance company in Cardiff, and had taken myself off – on the pretext of having some kind of super flu – to Ibiza on a Club 18 to 30 holiday. On my return, my manager summoned me into his office to enquire whether my health was now recovered. Upon being told that it was (with a hollow cough at my end to show that my life still hung in the balance), he had said, ‘Yes, I thought so. You looked very well when you dropped your suitcase on my foot at the railway station yesterday.’
I had to face it, my job as a travel writer was the only work I was qualified for. It was not boring, I was my own boss, and I could go to sleep more or less whenever I wanted to. The song ‘Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home,’ could have been written for me. I really did not know where I would be the next day, let alone the next week, and that (for the most part) suited me fine.
What did not suit me fine however, was the emotional instability of my vagabond existence. I wanted to be responsible. I wanted a settled relationship, maybe even marriage and kids. But how could this happen when I was spending half the year on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away from the one person I had finally set my set my sights on – Nicky?
‘It’s my job,’ was turning out to be more a curse than a blessing.
Chapter 13
The Unluckiest Man in the World
‘You haven’t met Bob?’ said Dave incredulously. ‘Bob’s real famous round here. He’s the unluckiest man in the world.’
I regarded Dave with suspicion. Dave was the gobby young Canadian I’d hooked up back in Samui – his outrageous statements were only matched by his outrageous sense of dress. Only that morning, he’d complained of ‘this real weird look’ some Thai woman had given him in a temple, and I’d snorted back ‘What do you expect with a pair of orange underpants on your head? This is a temple, man. Not a beach!’
‘No, seriously, Frank,’ Dave urged me. ‘You gotta meet Bob. He’s a walking disaster. The only thing worse that could happen to Bob is to be dead. He’s had bones broken, money taken, flights cancelled, friends leaving town with all his belongings – and not just once, but on several occasions!’
I sighed. When Dave was on one of his rolls
, there was no denying him.
*
We found Bob nursing a banana milkshake in one of the quieter cafes in Bangkok’s Koh-Sahn Road. He had a polka dot bandana round his head, and a small tattoo – of a snake – on the left nostril of his long, crooked nose. He looked like a sad, old dog which had lost its last bone.
‘Oh, you got one of those banana milkshakes,’ said Dave, drawing us both up a chair. ‘I could have these milkshakes all day. At five baht, they’re such a good deal. Go anywhere else, and they’re ten or fifteen. Good call, Bob, these shakes are so good, the bananas are so ripe, they’re just about perfect. And I should know, I’ve had a lot of them, I’ve had an awful lot of them.’
I shook Bob’s hand and said, ‘I hear you’re the unluckiest man in the world. How unlucky is that?’
‘Well,’ sighed Bob, ‘I arrived in Burma the day they demonetarised the currency. All high value notes were declared illegal.’
‘That was bad?’
‘That was very bad. We were on a bus when it happened. All I had were big notes, and they were all useless. I had to sell all my film to survive. And my sleeping bag.’
‘I don’t believe this guy,’ interrupted Dave. ‘Over the past few months, he’s been mugged outside a Wimpy bar in Sydney, had his jaw fractured in Bali, and lost his ticket to Singapore because the agent he bought it off didn’t send it to him and absconded with the money.’
‘Oh, and the day I moved into my apartment in Sydney,’ added Bob, ‘I believe the person with the key came back in again and stole my passport. ‘
I whistled. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘No, a million things happened to me. I missed my bus in Kathmandu. That was the best one of all.’
