Katoeys don't look like guys, they look like goddesses. There's this bar in Patpong, King's Castle I think it's called, where half the dancers are katoeys. It's a great bar, one of the busiest on the strip. Now, the thing about King's Castle, is that all the katoeys are absolute stunners and they dance at the front. The girls, the real girls, are as ugly as dogs, and they dance at the back. Most of the punters don't even know that they're katoeys, they just think that the pretty girls are at the front and the dogs are at the back. Most of the guys who bar fine the katoeys don't even know they're going with men. They go back home to Germany or Denmark or wherever they're from thinking they had a night of great sex with a pretty Oriental girl. Little do they know they were with a man and that they came inside a cylinder of flesh carved from a dick and sneakily lubricated with a spot of KY Jelly. Unless you really know what to look for, you'd never know. They've got tits, great legs, superb arses, and they make love the way women do in blue movies. Lots of enthusiasm, lots of noise. Your average Thai hooker does it with her head turned to the side or with her eyes closed, but katoeys do it like they love it. Okay, I know it's an act, but at least they take the trouble to fake it.
But afterwards, there's none of the lies that the bargirls tell. None of that crap about sick fathers or young sisters who need money for school or dead water buffaloes. You pay them and they leave. Strictly business. And that's the way it should be. They give you sex, you pay for it, end of story. Katoeys never phone you up to sweet talk you, or curl up next to you and tell you that they love you, only you. Katoeys don't bother with the lies, the games, the crap. You're better off with them. Trust me.
PETE
I got to the restaurant just before seven o'clock but she didn't turn up until half past. She rushed into the restaurant as if she were scared that I wouldn't be there. She gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I sorry, theerak,’ she said. Theerak. Darling. I hated the word. It was what the bargirls called their customers and whenever Joy said it I'd flinch.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Have traffic too much,’ she said, sitting down opposite me and putting her red leather wallet on the tablecloth between us as if daring me to open it and check that my photograph was there.
I looked at my watch. ‘What time's your bus?’ I asked.
‘Midnight. I tell you before.’
‘Do you want to eat?’
She shrugged. ‘Up to you.’
I ordered a few Thai dishes. I wasn't particularly hungry. I wasn't looking forward to going back to England and leaving Joy alone. I had a sudden urge to take her back with me, even though I knew it was impossible. She didn't have a passport, never mind a visa.
‘What you think, Pete?’ she asked.
I told her.
‘I want come with you, too,’ she said. ‘I not want stay alone.’
‘You won't be alone,’ I said. ‘Your father's there. Your brothers.’
‘I not like stay my house,’ she said. ‘Mon die in my room. I scared phee too much.’ Phee. Ghost.
‘You are going to stay in Surin, aren't you?’
‘You want?’
‘You know that's what I want.’
‘Okay. I can do for you.’
I took the envelopes out of my pocket and slid them across the table. She inspected them one by one, then grinned.
‘You think I not write to you?’
I smiled back. ‘No, I know you'll write. I just wanted to make it easier for you.’ I gave her another envelope, this one with her name on it. ‘Your salary,’ I said.
She put the envelope under her wallet without opening it.
The food arrived. Neither of us ate much. I couldn't taste anything. I wanted to tell Joy so much, that I was going to miss her, that I hoped she'd be good while I was away, but I knew that there was nothing I could say that would make me feel any better about going. And no matter what she said to me, I was always going to have my doubts. Big Ron's words kept echoing in my mind. Standard con. Was Joy different? As I watched her eat, pecking delicately at her food as if she too didn't have any appetite, I wanted to believe that she wasn't the same as the thousands of other bargirls who worked the red light areas. Time and time again I'd heard the boys in Fatso's talk about the stupid farangs who'd been ripped off, farangs who should have known better. Had I joined the legion of sad fucks, too? God, I hoped not. But the fact that Joy had given up work for me surely meant something. And when I asked her to go back to Surin and wait for me, she'd readily agreed. Everything I asked her to do, she did. So what was I worried about? I'm just not sure, but there was a nagging doubt at the back of my mind, a feeling that something was wrong.
‘Joy?’
She looked up from her food and smiled sweetly. ‘A-rai?’ What?
‘Do you love me?’
‘What you think?’
‘I don't know.’
‘Why you not know?’
I shrugged. I wasn't sure what to say. Voicing my doubts might upset her, and I didn't want to do that only hours before I had to say goodbye to her for two months.
‘Pete, I have you only one. If I not have you, I die.’
I smiled and reached over to stroke her hand, the one she was holding her fork with. ‘You don't have a Thai boyfriend?’
Her smile froze. I'd offended her. I stroked her hand again but she pulled it away. ‘Why you ask?’
I sighed. ‘Because many of my friends say that the girls who work in the bars always have Thai boyfriends or husbands.’
‘I not same girls who work bar,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said.
She looked me straight in the eye as if daring me to argue. ‘If I not love you, I work Zombie, Pete. I not go Surin. I have nothing in Surin, but I go for you. I wait you come back Thailand.’
‘I know,’ I repeated. I wished I'd never started this conversation.
‘I want you believe me, Pete.’
‘I do.’ And I did.
When we'd finished eating I paid the bill and we went outside. She flagged down a taxi and kissed me softly on the cheek. ‘I love you,’ she said. She turned and opened the door. She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but on impulse I put my hand on the door handle.
‘I'm coming with you,’ I said.
She frowned, but before she could argue I put my hand on her hip and guided her on to the back seat and slipped in besides her.
‘We go Dynasty?’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘I'll go to the bus station with you,’ I said.
‘Better I go alone.’
‘Why?’
‘Bus station very busy,’ she said.
The taxi driver asked her where she wanted to go and she told him brusquely in Thai to wait.
‘I go with you to Dynasty,’ she said.
‘No, I want to say goodbye to you at the bus station.’
Her lips went all tight and for a moment there was an icy hardness to her eyes. A horrible coldness gripped my insides.
‘Where are you staying?’ I asked her.
‘With Sunan,’ she said.
‘Okay, let's go to Sunan's house and get your things.’
‘Things?’
‘Your bag. Your clothes.’
‘Not have.’
That didn't make any sense at all. Joy was staying in Surin most of the time, but she had been in Bangkok for several days and I'd seen her in several different outfits. There was no way she'd come down with no clothes. If nothing else she had her make up and her hair shampoo.
I looked her, the tight feeling in my stomach getting worse by the second. She was lying, I was sure of that, but why? What was there to lie about? Why didn't she want me to see Sunan's room?
‘What's wrong, Joy?’ I asked her.
‘I not want you go Sunan's room.’
‘Why?’
‘I shy. Ben sa-lam.’ It's a slum.
I took both her hands in mine. I told her that I didn't care where Sunan lived, I didn't care ho
w bad it was, she was all I cared about. I just wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before I went back to England. She listened to what I was saying, but it was clear from the look on her face that she still didn't want me to go back with her.
I began to get annoyed. I was giving her ten thousand baht, I'd paid for her to stop work, I was supporting her, the least she could do was to show me where she'd been staying. I'd told her why, I made it clear we'd only be there for a few minutes while we collected her things, surely I wasn't asking too much? Unless. Unless she was hiding something. I sat back in the taxi and folded my arms across my chest. I looked at her. She looked at me. I waited. Eventually she spoke to the driver in Thai. I heard the words ‘Suphan Kwai’, Buffalo Bridge, the area where Sunan lived.
Joy didn't say a word during the drive to Suphan Kwai. She looked out of the side window, her face turned away from me. I kept trying to talk to her but all I got were head shakes and shrugs. She was sulking, big-time. That annoyed me because I hadn't done anything wrong. If she was hiding something from me, then she was in the wrong. She was supposed to be my girlfriend. She was supposed to be in love with me, and love was supposed to be based on honesty. I'd let her come around to my hotel room on many, many occasions. She'd stayed over, the girls on reception didn't even ask to see her identity card any more, they knew she was with me.
I stopped trying to get her to talk. I tried to think where I'd gone wrong. The taxi stopped on a road lined with hawkers stalls and the air was filled with the cloying smell of fried food. I paid the taxi driver. Joy was already walking away down an alley, her clumpy black shoes clattering on the concrete. I hurried after her. She refused to look at me as we walked, despite my attempts to get her to talk.
‘Are you angry at me?’ I asked.
She shook her head, but still she wouldn't look me in the eye.
A couple of hundred yards down the alley was a traditional wooden Thai house surrounded by a brick wall. Joy went through a doorway. An old Thai man with a towel wrapped around his waist was ladling water over himself with a small plastic bucket. He grinned at Joy, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth. Joy ignored him. We went around the corner of the house. A fat woman with her hair tied up in a bun was scraping food around a wok. She unscrewed the top of a bottle of something with her teeth and poured the contents into her wok. She said something to Joy and Joy grunted.
‘Who are they?’ I asked Joy.
‘They live here too,’ she said. We went into the house and up an open wooden staircase. There were two doors at the top, one to the left and one to the right, which Joy knocked. There were several pairs of shoes and sandals outside. I waited halfway up the stairs. Joy put her face close to the door and said something, in a language I didn't recognise. Someone replied. Sunan, I think. Joy turned her face away from me as she spoke. I looked at the sandals and counted nine pairs. They were all scuffed and dirty. Some large, some small. The large ones must have belonged to men. Were there men inside? Was that why Joy didn't want me to see her room? Did she have a boyfriend? But if she did, why did she let me come back with her? Why not just refuse to tell the taxi driver where to go?
Joy said something to Sunan again, then turned to look at me. ‘Room dirty,’ she said. ‘Sunan want to clean.’
‘That's okay,’ I said. ‘I don't mind.’
‘She very shy.’
‘So I'll wait.’ I sat down on the stairs. Joy glared at me. Really glared. I smiled up at her.
‘Better we wait outside,’ she said.
I smiled again. ‘I can wait here.’ Joy kept looking at me. Her eyes were hard, really hard. I kept smiling because I knew that was how to deal with Thais. So long as I kept smiling she wouldn't express her anger. That was the theory anyway. But behind the smile my mind was racing. I couldn't for the life of me understand why she was behaving like this. I'd paid for her to stop work. Thirty minutes earlier I'd given her ten thousand baht. All I wanted to do was to take her to the bus station, to say goodbye to her, to show that I cared. What had started as an expression of my feelings for her had degenerated into a clash of wills, mine against hers. I was forcing her to do something she didn't want to do, the height of rudeness in Thai terms. So I smiled and waited and felt like shit.
Ten minutes later I was still sitting on the stairs and Joy was standing by the door.
‘Joy, I want to go into the room,’ I said.
She shouted something to Sunan. Sunan answered. I couldn't make out what either of them had said. ‘She not ready.’
I stood up. ‘Now,’ I said. ‘If you won't let me into the room, I'm going to go home.’
‘Up to you.’
‘If I go home, you won't see me again.’
She looked at me, her lips pressed tightly together.
I fought to control my anger. I wanted to take back the money I'd given her. I wanted to take the Mickey Mouse watch off her wrist. I wanted to take the gold chain from around her neck, another present. I wanted to tell her that I knew that she was lying to me and that if she was lying then she couldn't possibly love me.
‘Joy, tell me everything's okay. Tell me I can go into the room now. Please.’
‘Why you not believe me, Pete? Why you always think I lie to you?’
‘Can I look at Sunan's room?’
She didn't say anything. I turned on my heel and walked away. I hoped that she'd run after me, or shout my name, but she said nothing. I walked down the stairs and out of the house. The old couple were sitting at a rickety folding table eating their evening meal and they grinned as I walked by them. I walked across the yard and through the gap in the brick wall and down the darkened alley. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't want it to end like this. I didn't want to walk away from her angry, not when I was due to go back to London for months. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Joy was standing at the wall, watching me impassively. I walked slowly back. ‘Why, Joy?’ I asked her quietly. ‘Why do let me get so angry?’
‘I don't know,’ she whispered.
‘Why didn't you come after me?’
‘What you want me say, Pete? I not know what to say.’
‘I want you to tell me that you love me. That you don't have anyone else, that you only want me.’
‘You know I love you.’
I shook my head in exasperation. ‘You say you do, but you don't act as if you do. All I wanted to do was to go into your room, to see where you stayed. That's all. I don't understand why you wouldn't let me into the room.’
‘The room no good. Dirty. Sunan say she want to clean.
She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. I didn't want to laugh, but I couldn't help myself, she looked so damned cute. As my face broke into a smile she put her head on one side and fluttered her long lashes even faster.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘Stop it.’
She stepped forward and grabbed me around the waist. ‘Not fight with me, Pete. I love you, I not want fight with you.’
I rested my cheek against the top of her head and breathed in the smell of her hair. I wanted to make love to her there and then, to take her, to possess her. It always surprised me how quickly anger could turn to desire, how one moment I could want to scream at her, then just as quickly I wanted to be inside her, kissing her and telling her that if I could I'd die for her.
‘Pete, if you want, you can see my room,’ she whispered. She slipped her hand in mine and together we walked back to the house. She took me back up the stairs and knocked on the door. Sunan opened it, a big smile on her face.
‘Sawasdee ka,’ she said, opening the door wide.
The room was about twelve feet square, with a door that I supposed led to a bathroom. There was a large fridge in one corner and a Formica table in another, and under a single window were a pile of sleeping mats. The floor was bare wood and whatever cleaning Sunan had been doing didn't involve sweeping because there were empty soft drink cans and cigarette packets scattered around. There were two suitcases by the s
leeping mats. Joy and Sunan stood in the centre of the room and watched my reaction.
I smiled but I felt sick inside. I could sense their unease, they were still unhappy at having to let me in. I looked around, wondering what was making them so nervous. I knew for sure that Joy was lying: it wasn't that they were shy about the state of the room, they were hiding something else. There didn't seem to be any personal items that belonged to Joy. I'd given her two bags, a black leather backpack and a red Mickey Mouse shoulder bag, and they weren't there. She had several photographs of me, some taken in Zombie, others taken when I'd visited her house in Surin, and she'd told me that she'd put them in frames. They weren't in the room, either. In fact, it didn't look like a room where girls stayed. There was a large poster of a Ferrari on one wall, and a poster of a girl on a motorcycle on another. They didn't seem like the sort of pictures that Sunan would want to look at. There were marks on the wall by the fridge where something had been stuck up and taken down. There were a dozen marks, and from the spacing I figured there had been photographs there. My stomach was churning. I just knew that Sunan had taken the photographs down because she didn't want me to see them.
‘Okay, Pete?’ asked Joy.
No, I wasn't okay. I was far from okay. I could think of only one reason why they'd made such a fuss. Joy and Sunan weren't staying in the room alone. There'd been a man there. Maybe two men. Boyfriends or husbands. If they'd been family members, brothers or cousins, there'd have been no reason to have hidden them from me. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I'm okay.’
‘We go now?’
‘Go where?’
‘Bus station. I go Surin. I go now.’
I nodded at the suitcase. ‘Aren't you going to take your clothes?’
‘Not mine. They belong Sunan.’
Private Dancer Page 15
