I thought, just for a minute, that Phet was going to let me down but I should have known that she wouldn’t dare. She had a funny look in her eyes like she was taking the piss. She denied it later of course but I had to give her a slap just to make sure she kept in line. That’s probably what she wanted anyway. I wouldn’t put it past her – deliberately trying to provoke me and then pretending to be frightened. God, Phet was a real find. She knows how to get me worked up and how to bring me down again. It’s a shame that her usefulness is so limited.
When I’d first seen her, she’d looked the part, cruising the hotel bar in a short skirt and heels. I’d seen her potential, how I could mould her, shape her into my personal plaything. She soon discarded the tarty clothes – they draw attention and I don’t want people to think I’ve paid for her company. Dressed decently she passes as a friend, or even a girlfriend. No affection in public though. I soon taught her how much I hate her cloying kisses, sucking up to me like I’m some sort of sugar-daddy, making people stare. One quick lesson and she stopped that. Maybe I could bring her along on my next trip to the hospital. Maybe I can make her part of the game. Now that could be really entertaining.
November 16th – Savannakhet, Laos
What a journey! Shit, it feels like days since I last slept and I doubt I’ll sleep tonight I’m so wired from the trip. It was just what I needed to shake off the demons of the last few days and, God, has it worked. I thought my nerves couldn’t stand much more after that trip round Hué on the back of Minh’s motorbike but ‘Oh my God, Buddha, shit,’ as Minh would no doubt say, what a hell of a journey!
I knew my instincts were right about this straight-through bus from Hué to Savannakhet. It seemed impossible when I read it on the poster, and, having survived the last twenty-four hours I can see how impossible it would be.
I set off from Hué at nine o’clock last night on a tourist bus bound for Hanoi. They’d overbooked so two young Israeli girls ended up sitting on plastic stools in the aisles. One of them was next to me and, as they’d just come over from Laos, they were keen to share their experiences and enthusiasm. Laos really sounds like the Promised Land. It’s funny because I was really nervous about coming here but, somehow, they dispelled many of my fears.
I was dropped off, with four other passengers, at Dong Ha – Vietnamese for ‘In the Middle of Nowhere’ – and we were presented with our options:
a) Bus at midnight, wait at the border from 2am until 7am and cross in the morning; or
b) Stay in Dong Ha for $5, have breakfast, leave at 5am and cross the border at 7am.
I had a feeling I might have been conned but there was very little I could do about it. I instinctively gravitated towards two Swedish girls I’d been chatting to in the café in Hué, and waited to see what they were going to do. It turned out to be option b.
The café owner had told us that we’d be the only people on the bus but, by the time it left Dong Ha, it was seriously overloaded. There were enough seats for twelve people and I counted nineteen on the bus. It was so cramped that one man had to get out of the window when we arrived at his stop. The two Swedish girls looked quite alarmed but all I could do was laugh. I finally felt free from the nagging worry that had been haunting me since Hanoi.
To boost my confidence I turned down a proposal of marriage on the bus. I’ve been wearing a wedding ring (what a bloody irony) to put men off, but this one was being egged on by his older sister. He didn’t seem hurt by my rejection, he simply switched his attentions to the older of the two Swedish girls. If only all men were so easily dissuaded, life would be so much simpler.
It was good to be off the tourist circuit. It seems that westerners do one of two routes in Vietnam, Sapa to Saigon or Saigon to Sapa. There’s a regular bus for western tourists and a range of trips to keep us busy. I enjoyed the one organised trip that I did from Hanoi but generally it’s way too structured for my liking, especially after my wanderings in China. But on the bus to the border I felt like I was mixing with real people again instead of just seeing the surface of the country. These were people going about their daily lives, heading for work. They must have been seriously pissed off to find three extra people, plus their luggage, on the bus. I didn’t feel like I had any right to complain about the overcrowding – it was partly my fault.
As we approached the border the bus stopped for a couple of minutes to let two old women out. They came back with bin liners full of packets of cigarettes which they proceeded to stuff into hidden pockets in their clothes and shopping bags. Every packet left a bulge that looked just like a packet of cigarettes and I could even read the labels through the thin fabric of one woman’s apron. I suppose I should have been worried but it was so inept that I had difficulty in controlling my laughter. Crossing the border was incredibly easy. I was stamped out of Vietnam quite quickly, then it was a half-mile walk to the Laos border. What a feeling, leaving/entering a country on foot!
We managed to find the next bus and set off into a morning which was already bright with the promise of clear sun and a heat haze shimmering above the rutted dirt track that passed for a road. As soon as we picked up any speed the dust blew through the interior of the bus like a tornado covering everything with a fine red coating. As I was already quite sweaty I turned a beautiful russet soon after setting off, a much nicer colour than my suntan!
The woman in front of me had a little girl with one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. She kept standing up on the seat to grin at me and I eventually found myself playing hide-and-seek games with her. Her mum seemed pleased as she was able to sleep for a couple of hours. Why is it that, on the roughest journeys, Asian people always seem to be able to sleep as soon as they sit down?
When mum woke up we had a ‘conversation’. I gathered that her daughter was three years old and an only child then the mother asked me if I had any kids and seemed puzzled when I said no. I’ve had this question so many times over the past few weeks. It usually follows ‘Are you married?’ I always say yes to that one as it seems easier than lengthy explanations, but I just can’t bring myself to invent children and then abandon them to travel around Asia. It feels wrong.
It got me thinking about kids again though. I’d have had it by now, little Joshua or Sophia (I can’t believe David had names picked out all ready, I thought that was something only women did.) I know I did the right thing in telling the doctors to terminate the pregnancy. There was no room for a child in that relationship and there’s no way I could have borne the responsibility for what the kid might have had to go through. Christ, when I look back I can see how stupid I was. How could I have let him take control of my body like that? I hold on to the fact that, if I’d had the kid, I’d have never been free of David. It was the right thing to do.
November 17th – Savannakhet
I kind of lost the thread a bit last night. I’m supposed to be keeping a journal of my travels, not wallowing in self-pity. I’ve just had a breakfast which redefined mediocrity, quite surprising considering this is the most expensive hotel in town. I’ve decided to take it very easy today. I was totally knackered after yesterday’s bus ride, and so overloaded with new experiences that I didn’t even finish writing about the journey here. The ‘road’ passed through small villages which looked totally untouched by the twenty-first century. Actually, they looked untouched by the last millennium. The houses were all raised off the ground on thick stilts and the area underneath was used for penning chickens and goats or, in many places, as a useful frame for stringing a hammock. Many places looked idyllic, like some sort of western idea of paradise, until you remember how poor the people are and what a hard life they live. I read somewhere that people in Laos are starving because the land is still so choked with landmines that huge areas are too unsafe to cultivate.
The hotel situation in Savannakhet turned out to be pretty dire. Everywhere was full except this place and a massive guesthouse which had one suspiciously cheap room left. I
t was a choice between $4 and $25 and my instincts were all screaming for expense and potential luxury. The expense part was right but the luxury turned out to exist only in my imagination. At least I have my own bathroom which is now splattered with pink stains from my feeble attempts last night to remove the dust from my body and my rucksack. I hope the cleaners bring me some fresh towels.
I think I’m going to have a walk down to the river today and write a few postcards. I feel settled and safe now so I intend to relax and enjoy my few days in Laos. Maybe I can find a hammock.
XI
In a way it was a relief, not the gory details of her previous relationship but the way she’d been able to shake herself out of her almost debilitating fear. It was confirmation of Ellen’s theory. Kai herself, in another life, had come to believe that she was imagining being followed. She’d even worked out that it was delayed shock, a reaction that could have hit her at any time. Unfortunately, due to her amnesia, she’d had to experience it twice and the second time felt just as real as the first time had sounded. Maybe now, now she’d had evidence from her own journal, corroboration from her therapist and from the feeling of release she was now experiencing, she could truly begin to move forward. There was also the mention of an abortion. She would have liked more detail but, of course, she knew the details, she just didn’t have access to them. It was frustrating to know that she had been pushed to such an extreme course of action but to be unable to recover the emotions surrounding the situation. She wanted to feel guilty, or at least shocked, but there was nothing. It was like it happened to another person and all Kai felt was sympathy.
She lay back on her bed, arms folded behind her head as though she’d found the hammock that she’d been looking for in Laos. She’d closed the blind after finishing reading the journal entry, dimming the light in the room, trying to avoid a headache without actually having to close her eyes and drift off. The ceiling with its flecked polystyrene tiles was as uninspiring as ever but at least it gave her a blank canvas on which to play back the events of the previous night.
Ellen had turned out to be good company even with all the teasing about the fact that Mark had been able to come up with a good explanation for Phet’s presence. Kai had grown used to the seediness of the bar and had become so absorbed in Ellen’s stories that she’d stopped noticing the desperation on the faces of the men and the thinly disguised boredom of the women. She’d attributed her eagerness to be back in her room to being over-tired and over-stimulated.
And now she had to work out what moving forward would mean. One thing she was determined to push for was a release date, something to hold on to and polish like an Aladdin’s lamp in her darker moments. Ekachai had persuaded the hospital management committee to let him contact likely embassies and now, with Mark’s conviction that Kai was British, they planned to send photographs. The British Embassy had assured Ekachai that they would pass information to the Missing Persons Bureau. Someone would know who she was. It was something else to hold on to, something that made her look to the future. She knew that she had nowhere to go, but at least she had friends and she was convinced that either Ellen, or Mark, or both would help her to get out of this place.
Kai was jolted from an increasingly elaborate escape fantasy by a discreet cough from the doorway. Ekachai stood framed in the rectangle of electric light spilling into the room from the corridor. As soon as he was sure Kai was aware of his presence he approached her bed.
‘You must be tired,’ he stated. ‘I heard that you went outside the hospital.’
His manner was odd, more formal than in recent visits and Kai had the feeling that she would have to be careful what she gave away about her visit to the bar. It was clear that the doctor didn’t approve of her excursion into the less salubrious side of Chiang Mai.
‘Yes, Doctor Thomas took me out for a drink. I think it was just what I needed. I feel a lot more positive this morning.’
‘Really,’ Ekachai’s tone was strange. ‘And who gave you permission to leave the hospital?’
‘Hey,’ Kai jumped up and the doctor instinctively flinched away from her. ‘What was it you said? You’re not my jailer? I didn’t realise I needed permission. I told one of the nurses I was going out with Doctor Thomas. I thought, after my outing with Mark, you wouldn’t object to me spending a few hours relaxing with one of your colleagues. It’s not like I was wandering around on my own.’
‘I don’t think you understand.’ He sat heavily in the chair and rubbed his eyes with the finger and thumb of one hand. ‘I am responsible for your well-being. If anything had happened… you were drinking, we do not know how alcohol might affect your perception.’
‘Well, we do now,’ she smiled. ‘It made me feel human again instead of like some circus freak. Anyway, who are you responsible to? It’s not like there’s some concerned family member waiting for me to recover. Nobody’s going to sue you for this.’
‘This is not my concern. I have been following your case, I have written reports, monitored your every word and now you act rashly and without consulting me first.’
She studied his face, reading the earnestness in his eyes and the disappointment in his posture. What could she say? She’d had a good time. It hadn’t felt rash or irresponsible. What had Ellen told him to get this sort of reaction? It had hardly been some sort of raucous girls’ night out.
‘Listen,’ she said, her tone conciliatory, ‘I don’t know what Ellen’s said but it was just a couple of drinks and some good conversation. It’s helped me shake off some of my depression and I feel more optimistic than I have done since I… since I came here. I don’t understand why this is such a big problem.’ He studied her face, checking for the truth, forcing her to meet and hold his eyes until he nodded, satisfied.
‘I haven’t yet spoken to Doctor Thomas and I have no wish to question her actions. I simply wished to speak to you about the risks of behaving hastily at this moment. I will let this pass but, please, inform me if you intend to leave the hospital again. I don’t want to find out from another person and be made to feel like I’m incompetent.’ He smiled faintly and shrugged, his attitude more friendly.
Kai considered. Now didn’t seem to be the best time to suggest he give her a discharge date. He obviously felt that she wasn’t ready for the world outside and he was her doctor after all so she had to trust his judgement. She sat back on the bed, leaning on her arms and returned to her perusal of the ceiling tiles. And then a thought struck her.
‘You said you haven’t spoken to Doctor Thomas yet so how did you know I had a drink last night?’ Even as she asked the question, the answer was obvious.
‘Your friend Mark telephoned this morning. He wanted me to tell you that he’d like to see you again. He’s given me a telephone number and I can arrange for you to make a call if you want him to take you out again. He mentioned that he’d seen you in a bar with another patient. He was worried. When he described your companion I was able to set his mind at rest, a little.’
Kai was stunned. Mark had been telling tales? It didn’t make any sort of sense. What was he worried about? He’d treated her perfectly normally last night then gone behind her back to the doctor. Her thoughts must have registered on her face because Ekachai was quick to reassure her.
‘Mark was concerned because he did not understand the situation. Perhaps if you had told him that your friend also was a doctor rather than allowing him to believe she was another patient he would not have worried and this matter would not have come to my attention. I am sure he acted from the best of intentions. Do not be too quick to judge him.’ Ekachai’s eyes turned his last statement into a question. Kai sighed and nodded. Just her hair-trigger temper again. She’d been quick to distrust Mark, quick to condemn without the facts.
‘Perhaps I ought to call him?’
Ekachai raised his eyebrows in agreement. ‘Later,’ he said, standing up to leave. ‘I have to see other patients, then I will take you to my off
ice. It will be private.’ His earlier anger had dissipated, leaving Kai feeling guilty. She could have consulted him, she could have at least told him where she was going and who with. Perhaps it had been a gesture of defiance; maybe she had wanted to show the doctor that she was in charge of her own life and could make her own decisions. Now she just felt like a complete shit for not taking account of his position, or his feelings.
***
True to his word Ekachai returned within the hour and his earlier reserve had been replaced with a full smile. ‘So, we shall make that call?’
Kai nodded and followed him out of her room. Now the corridor held no fears for her and it was becoming familiar. The scuffs and scrapes had lost their novelty, the elevator doors held no interest because she knew that she’d never use the lift and she knew that Ekachai wouldn’t force her to confront her fear in that enclosed, coffin-like space. The doctor turned at the end of the corridor, just before the double doors which opened on to the stairway.
‘My office,’ he smiled gesturing to a door which might have been pale blue at some point centuries ago but it had become a muted grey, worn and faded, reminding Kai of Ekachai’s expression as he’d sat opposite her that morning. There was a nameplate on the door, a line of black Thai script on tarnished chrome with an unfamiliar name in Roman letters underneath. ‘My predecessor,’ he explained before she could ask. ‘I have never found time to change the name. Also it makes me anonymous when people come looking.’ He was smiling but there was a serious note in the tone of his voice which made Kai wonder why he would want to hide.
Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller Page 15
