‘A Lustful Gentleman’ – Some New Chapters…
28 Jan 2012 Comments Off
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Today, I am publishing chapters 1 through 5 of ‘Part Two –Ying’ of my novel.
As mentioned in my last blog, I have now re-indexed the novel and I have broken up the story into much shorter chapters. The original Chapter One, is now ‘Part One – Na’ and now contains 11 separate chapters. These can be found in their entirety bu clicking the above, appropriately titled tab. It is the same text as before, with maybe some very minor, mainly syntax amendments, so no need for those who have already read the old ‘Chapter One’ to re-read it – unless of course you wish to…☺
‘Part Two – Ying’ is not yet complete, and of the five chapters published below, chapters 1 through 3 were previously published as part of the old Chapter Two, and chapters 4 and 5 are completely new.
My new chapters are generally around 3,000 – 5,000 words in length and this makes it easier for me to set myself achievable targets. I seem to be someone who needs definable targets for all aspects of my life, otherwise, procrastination sets in.
After much experimentation, I have settled into a good routine of publishing two blogs a week, (except occasionally when I am out of town or some other event takes up my time), and I am now aiming to write a minimum of one chapter of my novel per week – possible even two on some weeks to compensate for those weeks when I may fall short.
Hopefully, if I stick to these targets, I will get my novel well and truly finished by mid-year. Let’s see.
I think I have mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, I will publish newly completed chapters of my novel on days other than my regular blog days, so tomorrow I will publish my semi-weekly blog, as usual.
Anyway, here are Chapters 1 – 5 of ‘Part Two – Ying’; I hope you are enjoying the story so far….
A LUSTFUL GENTLEMAN
PART TWO – ‘YING’
CHAPTER I
Ying turned her little Jazz into her driveway and drove slowly up the long driveway and under the carport. The car stereo was blaring out so loudly that when she opened the front door of the car, it sounded like one of those mobile discos; the ones that drive along Pattaya’s roads at night, blaring out music with such ear-splitting intensity that bystanders can barely even think, let alone hear themselves speak. The deafening pop music reverberated harshly across the peaceful, still night. Until Ying’s abrupt arrival, the only sounds to be heard were those of the toads in a nearby pond, emitting their repetitive mating calls.
She cut the ignition and suddenly the world returned to its state of somnolence and once more the toads held pride of place in the humid night air. Ying unlocked the side door to the house, dumped her handbag on the dining table and then summoned up one last burst of energy to climb up the central staircase, enter her enormous bedroom and collapse, fully clothed, on her bed. She lay there for a few minutes, unable to move. She had been drinking but was not wholly drunk – she had drunk just enough to make her woozy and very sleepy.
It had been a very long day. She had been woken before 8 a.m. that morning by the girl who usually opened her hair dressing salon, with the news that she was sick and would not be able to make it in to work that day. As a result, Ying had only had about four hours sleep and it had taken all her will power to drag herself out of bed, take a quick shower before jumping into her car and make it to her salon before the regular opening time of 9 a.m.
She had spent the whole day there and at around 8 p.m. when the final customer had finally left, she had driven to a friend’s house where they had spent the next seven hours playing cards and sipping Bacardi Breezers. By three a.m, Ying was down about three hundred Baht and she decided to call it a night. She would have to get up early, yet again, to open her shop in the morning.
She roused herself briefly – just long enough to pull off her jeans and top before collapsing once more onto her bed in her underwear. She lay there for a few minutes with her eyes closed, but for some reason sleep wouldn’t come, a problem she often encountered when she was over-tired and feeling tipsy. She was so tired but her mind kept going round and round.
What sort of life was this? Living in this huge house virtually all alone? It was far too big and it was a daily battle to keep it in in a half way decent state on a minimal budget, while at the same time trying to start a business that was struggling to break even. It was all a bit of a nightmare; now that her assistant was ill, so she wouldn’t even get a decent night’s sleep.
But the longer she lay there, in her heart she knew that on this day she would never make it to her salon much before noon. She was just too tired. She idly speculated on how many customers she might lose if she had yet another unscheduled closure. It had been difficult enough to attract customers in the first place, and for sure, if any of her regulars came in the morning and found her closed, they would not come back. There were simply too many other hair salons in the vicinity for them to remain faithful to a place that kept closing without warning. What a mess!
She curled up with her favourite cuddly panda in the enormous four- poster bed, but still she couldn’t sleep. It was a strange journey indeed that had brought her to this point in her life: thirty four year’s old, living in a huge house, with a nice car in the driveway, but almost perpetually broke. Her estranged husband, Toby, barely sent her enough money to cover the utility bills; she knew that he was also financially distressed and very soon, even that cash stream would probably dry up. There was no way they were going to be able to sell their jointly owned house in the foreseeable future. The market was dead – no one was buying. It was a veritable ‘albatross’ around both of their necks. If they succeeded in selling it, they could both move on with their lives, but as it was, they were both broke and unable to make the clean break that they both yearned for.
Finally, she dozed off. She drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep for a few exquisite minutes when she was rudely awakened by the screeching sound of a Thai rock song, piercing the blessed silence of the early morning. She slowly regained consciousness, wondering for a moment where the music was coming from. Then she knew; it was coming from her phone – her mobile phone was ringing.
She reached out blindly, grabbed hold of the phone and without looking at who was calling, she put it to her lips. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Khun Ying?’
‘Yes. Who is that?’
‘This is Pattaya Police station, I am Lieutenant Somkid. We would like you to come here immediately.’
‘Why? Why? What is it? What have I done?’
‘You have done nothing – it’s your husband. We want you to come here and see us about your husband. He is in a lot of trouble.’
‘My husband! He doesn’t live with me anymore. He left me ages ago! I can’t come – I’m not free!’
‘Khun Ying, if you don’t come here and help your husband, he will be in very serious trouble. He will go to jail.’
‘I don’t care! I don‘t care! Fuck my fucking husband! I don’t care what happens to him. I told him! I warned him! I don’t care what happens to him!’
‘Khun Ying, if you don’t come down her immediately and help him, your husband might even die.’
‘I don’t fucking care!’ Let him fucking die!’
She cut off the call, turned off her phone, and closed her eyes, praying that sleep would come back again and blot out the images in her mind.
‘Fuck Toby. Fuck him…fuck him… fuck him…’
Despite the air-conditioning, she suddenly broke out in a sweat. ‘Oh No, not again!’ she said out aloud. ‘Please not again…’
In spite of her antipathy, she suddenly worried about what horrors may befall her errant husband… her fucking husband. Surely that fucking cop didn’t mean it literally? Why should Toby die? But she continued to fret. Die ? No, surely not…she had already seen too many deaths in her life to contemplate yet another one.
PART TWO – CHAPTER II
Ying was sitting cross legged, at one end of a huge, roughly hewn wooden table cum workbench, which served as part cooking area, part sleeping area, part drinking area and part living area; which has such a ubiquitous presence in the rural Thai villages. It was the central meeting and gathering area for the occupants and friends of any particular abode.
This particular ‘family bench’ was probably around two meters in length by about one and a half meters wide and covered the entire shaded area in front the modest, two room single storey wooden house that had been the only home Ying had known for the entire eight years of her young life. It was a home that she shared with her mother, younger sister and two younger brothers.
Barely ten minutes ago, she had arrived home from her long, daily walk from school; but already she was hard at it, preparing the vegetables for the family’s evening meal which she would soon start cooking for the five of them – possibly six, if her father decided to stay and eat with them.
She looked across to the far end of the table where her father was also sitting cross-legged in an alcohol-fuelled conversation with one of his drinking cronies from the village. Both of them were well into their ‘cups’. Ying had noticed one empty bottle of Mekong whisky on the ground near to them and a second bottle was already half empty. The two men sat facing each other on the table, the space between them occupied by the whisky bottle, along with a dirty ice bucket and some empty soda water bottles.
Her father snarled at his daughter, ‘Ying! Get me another bottle of soda!’
She jumped up and ran to the side of the house where a half empty case of soda bottles was standing and grabbed a couple of bottles and quickly delivered them to the two men.
The drunken man barely acknowledged her existence as she put down the bottles and returned to her cooking chores. Mama would soon return from the rice fields where she toiled daily at her back- breaking, twelve hour shift in the flooded paddies – up to her chest in the warm, mosquito-ridden water. Ying’s two brothers and baby sister were inside the crudely built house, watching a small black and white television in the corner of the room. They would all be very hungry.
As poor as there were, there weren’t many families in her village who enjoyed the luxury of a television, and on most evenings, a large crowd of villagers would descend on their humble abode for a couple of hours to watch the nightly ‘soap operas’ put out by the only two Thai Channels they were able to tune into from their somewhat isolated neck of the woods.
Ying wasn’t sure whether she should be grateful or resentful of the fact that her father was one of the ‘big wigs’ in the village and had been able to provide them with a coveted TV. She knew well enough that there were many occasions when they wouldn’t see him for days – sometimes weeks – when he would disappear, without warning. On such occasions, the sparse food money he occasionally gave her mother would dry up completely. Sometimes, they wouldn’t eat for several days and it was for this reason that her mother had recently started to work in the paddy fields, as a sort of protection against the vagaries of her common law husband’s largesse.
One of Ying’s friends from the village had told Ying that her father had several other ‘wives’ in a nearby village and that when he disappeared, he would go and stay with them. She wasn’t sure of the truth of these stories, but suspected they were probably true. She did know for sure that her father was not a very nice person. Often, he would return home very drunk and pick a fight with her mother, beating her mercilessly. On more than one occasion her mother had been so badly beaten that they had to call for a doctor to treat her injuries. He had even hit Ying and her brothers on the odd occasion, so whenever they realised that he was particularly drunk, they would do their best to keep out of his way. But no one would dare to say a word to him about his brutal behaviour. He was a very powerful, well-connected, ‘mafia-type’ figure and everyone seemed in awe of him. No one had the courage stand up to him.
Ying could see that her father was getting very drunk and feared that it wouldn’t be long before trouble started. She wanted to warn her mother to stay away but she didn’t know how to go about it. If she left off from her food preparation, her father might get angry; he was so unpredictable. In the end she did nothing; she just sat there, working away and hoped that something would happen to take her father away from their home before her mother arrived back from work.
She couldn’t believe her luck. Almost at the very moment that she wished something would happen, a motorbike drove slowly down the narrow track which led to their house. She could clearly see one of her father’s friends driving the bike but she didn’t recognise the young man on the back. She assumed it was another member of her father’s ‘criminal-gang’. ‘Good,’ she thought, ‘maybe they are all going off to do a ‘job’ somewhere.’ That’s what usually happened when his low-life friends came to see him in the late afternoon.
The bike came to a halt outside the house, less than a meter from where her father and his drinking companion were sitting, but they didn’t get off. In fact, both men remained seated and the engine remained running. As Ying watched, she heard the man on the front yelling something angrily at her father, but he behaved as though nothing had happened. Deliberately ignoring the shouts from the motorbike driver, Ying’s father picked up his whisky glass to take another sip. As he put the glass to his lips, the angry driver shouted something to the youth behind him, whereupon the young pillion passenger lifted his right hand to reveal a handgun; the dark metal glistening in the late afternoon sun.
Although Ying hated her father, she suddenly felt a jolt of panic and revulsion at what was about to happen. But before she could even shout out a warning, the youth fired three shots – one after the other – at almost point blank range, into her father’s head and body. Her father had been so drunk that he hadn’t even seen the shots coming. The smoke was still clearing as the driver snapped his bike in gear, raced the accelerator and skidded his tyres on the dusty ground as the two killers sped away, out of the village.
She instinctively rushed over to her father’s slumped body, hoping against hope that he might have survived the violent attack, but one look at his head told her that it was all over. The bullet had taken half of her father’s face away and Ying stood transfixed, aghast at the grizzly sight. She started screaming, becoming hysterical as the villagers emerged from their nearby homes and rushed over to see what all the noise was about.
Into the midst of this commotion arrived Ying’s mother. Quickly taking in what had happened, her mother grabbed hold of her, and led her towards the house, just as her other children were emerging to see what was going on.
‘Go inside! All of you!’ her mother shouted, ‘and stay there until I say so,’
‘But Mama…’ Ying started to protest.
‘No, Ying, go inside and look after your brothers and sister.’ She shouted loudly at her.
Although Ying knew her mother to be a kindly woman who loved her children dearly, her hard life and difficult circumstances had given her a nasty temper. Woe betides anyone who tried to cross her or gainsay her when her ire was roused – except of course, her now deceased husband. But Ying always did what she was told when her mother was in this kind of mood, so she led her younger siblings back into the room and back to the television, dreading what disastrous effect this tumultuous event may have on their family’s fortunes.
***
#In her wildest dreams, Ying couldn’t have imagined quite how catastrophic the after effects of her father’s untimely death would actually turn out to be.
She stayed away from school on the day following her father’s killing, as had her mother from the rice fields. There were many things to sort out, least of which was the cremation of her father’s body. Her mother had no money to pay for a funeral and was wondering what on earth she was going to do when the problem was solved for her by the appearance of her husband’s elder brother and sister, who lived in the next village.
Ying had only seen her ‘in-laws’ once before – when her father had invited them to a big party he held in the village. She doubted her mother had seen them very often either, as on that occasion they had been very unfriendly and had virtually ignored them. So she had expected the worst when they suddenly turned up, but her misgivings were soon assuaged when she heard the brother tell Mama that her father’s family would assume full responsibility for her father’s funeral arrangements.
‘Mama, that’s god news. Now you can stop worrying about it.’
‘Ying, go inside the house, I have some things to discuss with these people,’ she told Ying who once again felt aggrieved at being dispatched away from the centre of action.
She reluctantly walked into the house and tried, without success, to overhear what was being discussed. But it wasn’t long before she realised that whatever they were talking about, it wasn’t good news. She could hear her mother’s raised voice and the responding loud voices of her father’s relatives. She knew that things were not going at all well.
At length, she heard her Mama shout out in anger and after a long pause, she started to cry. She heard the man bark something back at her mother and then there was a long silence. Ying sat, waiting for somebody to say something, becoming ever more fearful at what might have transpired between them, but no sound could be discerned. Eventually, she gingerly peered out of the house; all she could see was the sight of Mama, her head in her hands, weeping quietly to herself. There was no sign of the others. They must have gone.
‘Mama, what has happened? Where have they gone? Did they refuse to pay for father’s funeral after all?’
Her mother looked up bleary eyed at her daughter – incredibly mature for her young years. ‘Funeral, my love? Why yes, child, they will pay for the funeral, don’t worry about that.’
‘Oh that is good news Mama,’ Ying said with a smile. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes, my child, it is good news. But I’m afraid that we have to stay away. They have told me that we are not allowed to go to the Wat. If we do, then they will refuse to pay for the cremation.’
‘That’s terrible Mama, why won’t they let us go to father’s funeral? I don’t understand.’
The tired woman looked at her eldest daughter. She wasn’t sure if Ying would understand. ‘They don’t want us there, my child, because they say that I am not his real wife and that you and your brothers and sister are not his real children. They say that his real wife lives with them in the next village and it would bring a big shame on his family if we go to the funeral. They said that nobody wants us there.’
Ying tried to absorb all this confusing information. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked herself. ‘Why can’t Papa have two wives? I don’t understand. What does it matter if we go to the Wat and pay our respects to our father?’ She considered everything for a few moments, before finally speaking, seeking to reassure her mother.
‘So we can’t say goodbye to Papa. Never mind, Mama, please don’t cry. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, he wasn’t a very nice man, was he?’
Her mother looked at her daughter, lovingly. ‘No Ying, you are right; he wasn’t a very nice man,’ before bursting into a new flood of tears.
‘But Mama, Mama, if he wasn’t very nice, why are you crying? We don’t have to go to the Wat. It’s not so important. Please Mama, please don’t cry.’
Eventually, her tears stopped and she dried her eyes. ‘Ying, my child, I am not crying about your father’s funeral. Yes I want to go. He was an unkind and selfish man, but he was the only man I ever loved and her bore me four beautiful children – but that is not why I am crying. You don’t understand.’
‘Try me Mama, try me. Why then?
There was an even longer silence before the distressed woman finally explained the bombshell news to her daughter. ‘Because, my child; because Papa’s family have told me that we must leave our home. They say it belongs to them and they want it back.’
‘Leave our home! They can’t do that! Where will we go? Surely Papas’s family wouldn’t be so cruel to us…’
‘Yes, they would, my love. It belongs to your father and I wasn’t married to him – not properly – and they want it back. They don’t care about us. They hate us.’
‘Oh, Mama, why are people so bad? When must we leave?’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Tomorrow! We can’t leave tomorrow! Where will we go?’
‘I don’t know, my love, I don’t know where we will go. I have no money to go anywhere.’
‘Then you must refuse to leave Mama, you must tell them we have to stay here until we find somewhere to go.’
‘I already told them that. That man – your uncle – he said if we don’t leave by tomorrow evening, he will bring the police and have us thrown out; and he means it, I know he does.’
‘But Mama, where will we go?’
‘I don’t know, Ying, I just don’t know…’
PART TWO – CHAPTER III
Ying sat with the rest of her fellow-villagers on the hard benches at the village Wat and stared at the ground. Around her, the adults held their palms together in prayer and joined in the resonating incantations being chanted by the saffron robed monks, who were seated in front and to the left side of them on a long bench. The somnolent drone of the incomprehensible Pali prayers had almost caused her to drop off to sleep, but without warning, the chanting momentarily stopped and she looked up, wide awake once more.
At the centre of her deeply tanned, Issan face that was already showing signs of promised beauty to come, her cavernous, deep brown eyes, were transfixed on a point several meters in front of her. She stared at the raised plinth at the far end of the temple grounds, where, hidden from view, her beloved grandfather was lying in a large casket dressed in his finest traditional Thai clothes, awaiting his journey to the next life.
It was just yesterday that she had arrived back from school and was in the process of getting changed to join her mother for her late afternoon session in the nearby paddy fields, when her brother had come running into the house, with a message for her to go quickly to her grandfather’s home. Her worst fears had been confirmed; Granddad’s disease-ridden body had finally given up the unequal struggle in his seventy fifth year on this earth – a worn out, skeleton of a man, who had lasted a lot longer than anyone could have reasonably expected, for he had been sick and infirm for several months.
To Ying, he was one of the few souls who had shown her kindness during the past few years of her brief but careworn life and although she had been expecting his death for some time, it came as a huge shock when she had rushed into his primitive room and found the poor old man, stiff and cold, lying on his dirty worn out mattress, his tattered, soiled clothes reeking of death and decay.
The next twenty-four hours had passed in a blur, and now here she was, at the village Wat, attending the last rites before her poor Granddad’s body was incinerated in the primitive crematorium.
She remained seated as the as the villagers around her rose to walk over and form a line in front of the plinth to pay their respects to one of the doyens of their humble village. ‘If it hadn’t been for Granddad, God knows what might have happened to me and my family when we arrived here from our previous home, some four years ago,’ she pondered to herself,
*
She would never forget that long journey of some twenty kilometres from the village where Papa was viciously murdered, to the village where her mother’s father – Ying’s grandfather – still lived. It had been in that village, some twelve years previously, that Ying’s father had first met her mother and had taken her away to live in his own village near to the Cambodian border, where his four children were subsequently born.
It seemed only yesterday that they had made that long, arduous trek, the five of them dressed in tatters, carrying all their worldly possessions, either balanced on their shoulders or piled perilously high on a primitive, two-wheeled cart, which they had borrowed from a neighbour. The trip took two exhausting days to complete, and at long last, the family had made it back to the place where Ying’s grandfather had made his home and where, some twelve years ago, Ying’s mother and father had first met.
Ying knew from her grandfather that Mama was originally from Chaiyaphoom, in the North-east of Thailand and that being desperately poor, she – along with many other Issan folk – had migrated to Sa Kaeo province to find work and start a new life. Thus, many villages in the area had become almost entirely populated by ethnic Issans, who all spoke Issan in their daily lives and had brought their Issan culture with them to this little part of Sa Kaeo province. But Ying’s father was an ethnic -Khmer, as were a majority of Sa Kaeo residents, given its proximity to Cambodia.
Ying then started to realise that there was another, more sinister reason why her mother and her family had been so hated in her father’s, Khmer-centric village. Who knows? It might have contributed to the reason he was killed, such was the hatred and distrust between the two cultures.
When they had arrived back at Granddad’s village some four years ago, they found him still in reasonable health, but eking out a poor existence as a field labourer. However, he did own a small plot of village land, which he had been smart enough to buy at a give-away price some years ago, when the previous owner had been desperate for money. Ying’s Grandmother had been dead for many years, and since then, he had lived alone in a small, makeshift house on stilts, which he had built himself. After his wife passed away, his needs were modest and he informed his daughter that she was welcome to take the remaining part of his unused land for her family to live on.
***
Ying was still rooted to the bench, now the only one left seated. ‘Come on Ying’, a village elder called out, breaking her reverie, ‘Come and pay respects to your Grandfather before we burn him’.
She rose as if a trance, without offering a word of acknowledgement, and joined the end of the line; but her mind was still in the dreams of yesterday.
*
The very next day after their arrival, her mother had gone to work in the rice paddy fields from dawn to dusk to earn sufficient money to feed her family. They now had to fend for themselves for much of the time; they had no money to build a house, and for many months the family had to make do with a few rusty sheets of corrugated iron, kindly donated by neighbours, which was fashioned into a lean-to.
Ying had returned to her village school and despite the harsh conditions under which she lived and the responsibilities she had to endure during the evenings and weekends, she continued to make good grades. Not only did she have to look after the family but she often had to join her mother working in the rice paddies to supplement their meagre income.
Ying’s mother may have been illiterate, but she was a canny woman and she soon realised that the land given to her by her father was worth more to her than just a place to build a home on. So after months of battling through frustrating, bureaucratic ‘red tape’ at the local government offices – particularly problematic given her illiteracy – and with the help of some village elders, the desperate mother finally succeeded in transferring Granddad’s parcel of land into her own name.
She was then able to borrow some money from the local government bank, lodging her newly acquired land as security and utilised the money to build a rudimentary house for her family to live in. It was more of a shack than a house, but it did put a solid roof over their heads, and did provide them with a proper, albeit very basic, toilet. This was to be Ying’s family home for many years to come.
Since then – several years in fact – life had settled into a hard but relatively uneventful routine. Her younger sister and brothers had started school and her mother had continued to keep the finances afloat by her daily labour in the paddy fields. She knew that Mama was for ever having financial problems and sometimes she had to borrow money from her neighbours to keep up the payments up on her bank loan. Mama’s constant fear was that the bank would seize her little bit of land and render the family homeless yet again.
***
At the tender age of twelve, little Ying, could not devote too much of her precious time thinking about such matters. She had too many other burdens on her young shoulders: surviving day to day, keeping up with her schooling, working with her mother and having a major role in the care and upbringing of her young siblings. Even as she stood in line at her Granddad’s funeral, she fretted that they had now taken two days off from the paddies and they must get back to work tomorrow, or by the end of the week, there wouldn’t be enough money to buy food.
At length, the formalities – unusually brief, due to the family’s lack of funds to pay for something more ostentatious - drew to a close, and her dear, worn out Granddad was sent on his way to his next life with puffs of black smoke bellowing out of the tall chimney, high above her head.
She wasn’t a particularly spiritual person – what girl is at that age – but on impulse, she closed her eyes and sat silently in prayer, begging ‘whoever may be out there’ that her Granddad be granted a better life the next time around. She felt sure that he deserved it as he had been a virtuous man and had made much merit in this life, now sadly at an end. When she eventually opened her eyes, she looked around and was surprised to find that everyone had gone. There was no sign of her mother and siblings, so she assumed that they had left her to her prayers and already taken off for their trek back home.
Overcome with grief but still dry eyed, Ying started to take the long, hot slow walk back to her home when just as she walked out of the Wat grounds, she was unexpectedly intercepted by the local head man – the Kaman of the village. He was Khun Somsak, the final arbiter of all village matters and the political ‘tool’ of the provincial party bigwigs. Ying knew him to be a strict, but fair old man and she surmised that he had decided to come over and pay his respects.
‘Sawasdi, Khun Ying,’ the old man started, ‘Do you have a moment? I would like to talk with you.’
‘Yes, of course, Khun Somsak, is it about my Granddad?’
Not exactly, Ying, come, follow me to my home, and we can have a quick chat.’
Ying dutifully followed the man to his own home, near the Wat, where she was bidden to take a seat in the porch, while a maid brought out a welcome glass of cold water for her.
‘Ying, your mother has asked me to talk to you on her behalf.’
‘Why, Khun Somsak, is something wrong? Has something happened to my Mama? She seemed fine at the Wat.’
The old man was silent for a few moments; not a man for quick repartee or unconsidered responses. ‘Yes… and… no… my dear. Yes, something is wrong, and no, your mother is perfectly well, as far as I am aware.’
‘Then what, sir?’
‘Ying, you are aware that your mother has problems making the monthly payments on her bank loan?’
‘Why, yes, of course, she is always talking about it and worrying herself silly.’
The old man remained silent.
‘Oh no! No!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘Don’t tell me we are going to lose our home again. This is too much – not now that Granddad has died. What will we do?’ she asked him, almost in tears.
‘No, Ying, the bank is not foreclosing – not yet, at any rate. No, the problem is that your mother has borrowed a lot of money from people in the village and she can’t pay it back.’
Ying thought about this for a while. ‘So what can I do about it? Why are you talking to me?’
‘Because your mother asked me to and because I think I have been able to find a solution to your family’s financial problems.’
‘So…this solution – it involves me?’ she enquired, fearing what may be coming next.
‘Yes, my child, it involves you, but please don’t be scared. We are not going to sell you to a massage parlour or anything like that. We are poor folk but we are not so bad as that.
‘Ying, my child, your mother has asked me to tell you that we have arranged for you to go and live with a family in Bangkok, to work as their as their maid and as a nanny to their children.’
‘Bangkok? I… I don’t understand…’
‘Ying, I have some friends who know a very nice family and they live in Bangkok and they need a young live-in maid. I am sorry, but it seems to be the only way out of your family’s money problems. The family will pay you a small wage and they will send it home to your mother to help with her daily expenses.’
‘But…what about my school?’
‘I’m afraid that your school days are all over, my child. You can already read and write – very well I hear – so that will hold you in good stead. Now you are grown up and you must help your family by going to work in Bangkok.’
‘But…what about my family? If I go to Bangkok, I won’t see be able to see my brothers and sister any more, will I?’
‘Well maybe one day you will be allowed to go home for a few days. You will have to discuss that with the family after you start work.’
Ying sat for a long time in silence, trying to absorb all these sudden and unexpected changes to her life. No more school – no more work in the paddy fields – no more looking after her family – no more village life with her friends…It was almost too much for her to take in all at once.
But the longer she thought about it, the more puzzled she became. It didn’t make sense – surely the money she would earn as a maid wouldn’t be that much more than she could earn in the paddy fields. And if she left home, who would look after the children? Who would cook their meals? If her mother had to do everything, then she would have to stay at home and she wouldn’t earn any money to buy food. What about the bank loan and the money she owed in the village? How was all that going to be paid back on a maid’s salary?
The canny old man seemed to sense what was going on in Ying’s young, over-active brain. ‘You are wondering how your mother will pay off her debts, aren’t you?
‘Yes, how did you know?
‘Because I know that you are very smart young lady. Well Ying, here is the crux of it all. We need you to be a very good girl and promise that you will stay with this family in Bangkok and work hard for them until you are eighteen years of age. Can you do that?
‘Well…yes… I suppose so… but why?’
‘Because the family have very kindly agreed to give your mother enough money to pay off all her debts, and in return, you must stay with them and work for them for six years, until you are eighteen. Is that OK?’ Can you do agree to that?
‘Agree? Why yes, of course. I have no choice do I?’
The man looked at her in silence.
‘But what happens… what happens if they are cruel to me and beat me and don’t feed me… what then?’
‘Don’t worry Ying, they won’t do that. They are good people, you have my word.’
‘And Mama? Will she be able to stop working in the paddy fields?’
He smiled at her concern. ‘Yes, Ying, you mother will have enough money to give up her work and stay at home. Your salary should be enough for the family’s daily needs, once she no longer needs to make the monthly payments on her bank loan.’
There was little more to discuss so she thanked the old man for his intervention and help in this matter, bade her farewells and walked slowly back to her own home.
Ying found her mother sitting cross legged on the ground outside their little home, waiting patiently for her return. She looked at her deeply troubled mother. Despite her tender age, she was not completely ignorant of the toll these past few years had inflicted on her mother; toiling in the hot, unremitting sun, up to her knees in muddy water, with her back bent at acute angles. This had left her with permanent back problems and severe arthritis. The child could see that Mama had been experiencing difficulty in getting about, even though she was still only in her forties. But to Ying’s young, but wise eyes, her poor Mama looked to be in her sixties.
Her mother looked at Ying, terrified what her eldest daughter might have to say.
‘It’s OK, Mama. You can stop worrying. I will go to Bangkok, and you can pay off the loans and stop working in the fields. I have agreed to everything.’
Her mother looked at her with tears in her eyes, and Ying knew that her Mama hated doing this to her daughter. The Kaman had told Ying that there was no time to be lost if Ying was to take up the position in Bangkok, so both of them were also distressed at the imminent departure of the family’s eldest daughter.
Like most Thais, Ying’s family weren’t particularly demonstrative, but on sudden impulse, she crouched down next to her Mama and hugged the disconsolate woman closely to her chest. ‘It’s OK, Mama – it’s OK; everything will be just fine.’
Her mother remained stiff and motionless; her moist, myopic eyes, transfixed on a nearby mangy dog which lay spread eagled on the hot dusty earth. As she stared, the dog’s shape slowly faded from view in the ever lengthening shadows of a fast approaching dusk.
PART TWO – CHAPTER IV
Ying was very hungry and utterly exhausted. It was 4 am and it was over twelve hours since her last meal and she had been cradling little Mac, an increasingly exhausting weight in her arms, for the past four hours. Thankfully, he had finally stopped crying, but she wasn’t too sure how much longer she could manage to nurse her tiny, malnourished, four month old baby.
But more than hunger and fatigue, Ying was wracked with fear. She was terrified that at any moment Udom would suddenly appear out of the of the early morning gloom on his ancient motorbike , spot them at the bus stop and drag them back home. There was still about two more hours to go before the Bangkok-bound would arrive – assuming it was on time, and these next two hours would be the most nerve wracking of all. It would soon be light and there was an ever increasing chance that Udom would wake up from his drunken stupor and come looking for them.
Ying couldn’t even contemplate the idea of having to return back home with her son. She had suffered enough and was determined to get away from the violent, uncaring Udom for good. This was the third occasion over the past week when she had packed her meagre belongings and tried to creep out of the house with Mac at the dead of night, after Udom had fallen asleep, but on each of the two previous occasions, the baby had started crying and effectively put paid to her plans. Fearful that Udom would wake up, she had returned to her mattress on the floor.
But she hadn’t given hope, and finally tonight, Mac had remained asleep and she had succeeded in getting out of the house without waking her dreaded common law husband to make the long, arduous, three kilometre trek to the bus stop , carrying baby Mac in her aching arms.
She was so tired that she couldn’t stand up any more, so she decided to find a patch of grass, off the road verge where she and baby Mac could lie down and rest. That way she could hide from the prying eyes of Udom until the bus arrived; but the problem was: she might fall asleep and miss the bus.
This problem was hopefully solved when she was joined at the bus stop by two middle aged women and she decided to ask them if they would let her know when the bus arrived. They looked at her with a quizzical stare, but nodded their somewhat offhand assent, so without further ado, Ying slumped on the ground behind a large bush and put her baby gently down beside her, where he thankfully remained asleep.
She wasn’t at all sure if the women would indeed do as bidden but she couldn’t stand up for another moment and knew that she had no choice but to place her trust these women, and if not them then in God. Even if they didn’t call her, she would still probably hear the bus arrive; for at least she could now be sure that it would stop at the bus stop to pick the two waiting women.
She lay down, so tired, but her mind was in a whirl. What a mess she had made of her brief life, and what sort of reception could she expect when she went back to her home in Sa Kaeo with a new born baby and no money? Her mother had been relying on her and she had let her down so badly. If it wasn’t for baby Mac, sleeping blissfully at her side, she might well have decided to end it all.
Where had it all gone so wrong? She asked herself.
***
It had all started off so well. The family in Bangkok had been very kind to her and she soon found that her new job as a house maid and nanny to two young children had been ‘child’s play’ when compared to the arduous manual work she had been subjected to, back home in Sa Kaeo. She had been treated fairly, and as promised, her employers had regularly sent money back to Ying’s mother so that she didn’t have to return to the back-breaking work in the paddy fields.
In the early years of her time in Bangkok, Ying had managed to make a few brief trips back home to visit with her family, but as the years passed and the needs of the children became more demanding, her visits home became rarer and rarer. But she didn’t really mind, as her employers had treated her almost as part of the family and they would take her with her whenever they went away on holidays, or even out to eat on evenings and weekends. Ying grew very fond of them, especially the two young girls, who were more like younger sisters than ‘employers’.
But it all changed one day, soon after Ying’s sixteenth birthday, when she met a young, very handsome young cook, who worked in one of the restaurants which her employers liked to frequent on Sunday evenings. The restaurant was only a short distance from her home and once the acquaintance was struck up, the two had many late night, clandestine meetings, when the young Udom had finished work and when Ying’s employers were fast asleep.
This had been Ying’s very first romantic experience and with her hormones raging like never before, it wasn’t long before she had fallen hopelessly in love with the good looking, fast talking, twenty-one year old lad from Surat Thani, who was determined to take the lovely young virgin to his bed.
During the next twelve months of their secret courtship, Udom found several opportunities to do just that, and by the time Ying had reached her seventeenth birthday, she felt that she couldn’t live a single day without seeing her beloved Udom. This was proving more and more difficult as the family had started to suspect that something was going on with the young teenager in their midst. They had discovered that she was in the habit of disappearing late at night and as a consequence, they kept a close eye on her, effectively preventing her from meeting up with her boyfriend.
The family had no idea who Ying had been sneaking out to meet late at night, but were determined to stop it, whoever it may be, so Ying had to satisfy herself with brief meetings with her lover whenever the family decided to dine at the restaurant. The two of them had discussed the problem, and Udom’s solution was for the two of them to run away together, but so far Ying had resisted. After all, she still had another year to run of her work contract with the family.
***
The family had nearly finished their meal and Ying was running out of time to do something. She looked around the table; the two girls were gorging themselves on ice cream and their parents were sitting back in their chairs, watching them lovingly through sleepy eyes, their stomachs bursting from the mountain of seafood they had just finished eating. It was Sunday afternoon and the happy, contented family were about to go home after their weekly foray to their favourite seafood restaurant.
Ying, who by now been part of this family family for the past five years, was also feeling full; but more than that, she was feeling extremely anxious that she wouldn’t have a chance to see Udom. It had been such a busy afternoon and the restaurant had been packed, which meant that it was all ‘hands to the pump’ in the kitchen and poor Udom hadn’t even had a chance to think about Ying , let alone spend a few minutes with his beloved.
In desperation and fearing that they would soon be on their way back home, she told her employers that she was going to the toilet and hoped against hope that as she passed near the kitchen, Udom would gain sight of her and come out to join her for a few precious moments. At first, she thought that she was destined to miss him for yet another week when, just as she was returning to the table, the young man appeared from nowhere, pulled her quickly into a small store room and soon they were in a fierce embrace.
When she was able to come up for air, she looked at her young, slim and startlingly handsome lover.
‘Oh my darling I have missed you so much,’ Udom whispered to her as she clutched him, shaking with emotion.
‘Me Too, sweetheart, I was afraid we wouldn’t see each other today. Oh Udom, I don’t think I can stand this much longer’
‘You won’t have to my love’
‘Why? What do you mean?
Ying, do you love me – truly?
‘You know I do?’
‘And do you want to live with me as my wife?’
‘Yes, yes, you know I do, but it’s impossible! You know that. How can I go away with you? I still have one more year to go of my ‘contract’.’
‘Ying, if you really want to come away with me, I will find a way.’
‘But how? I’m not running away – they might send the police after me.’
‘They wouldn’t do that, Ying, You have been a very good maid to them and their daughters; they would never send the police after you. In any case they wouldn’t dare. They can’t hold you against your will; that so-called contract is illegal.’
‘Oh Udom, I don’t know. They have been very kind to me and I love them. I can’t do anything bad to them.’
‘Leave it to me my love, I will find a way.’
With a quick peck on Ying’s cheek, the young man rushed off back to the kitchen where, Ying assumed, he had to complete his cooking shift.
But she was wrong. She returned to the table and was helping the children to gather up their things, when to her astonishment, Udom walked over to the table, as bold as brass, and addressed her employers directly.
‘Good evening sir,’ he said to the head of the family. ‘I would like to introduce myself. My name is Udom and I am a cook at this restaurant.’
The middle aged couple stared at the young man in silence, feeling somewhat taken aback by this brash and unexpected approach by a member of the kitchen staff.
‘You are probably not aware of this sir, but I have known Ying, your ‘employee’, for over a year and we are betrothed to each other.’
Although initially taken aback by this surprising news, Ying’s employer soon gathered his composure. ‘Well young man, we suspected that Ying was up to something late at night, but we had no idea that the culprit of her attentions was you…’
‘Yes, sir, it was me, Udom, isn’t that right Ying?’
Ying stared at him in embarrassment, not knowing what to say.
‘Is this true, Ying?’ the children’s mother joined in, ‘do you know this man? Have you been seeing him behind our backs?’
Ying realised that she had better tell the truth. ‘Yes, madam, I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid it is. Udom really is my boyfriend.’
Her employers looked at each other in astonishment, wherupon the man asked her: ‘So how long have you two known each other?’
‘Exactly one year sir,’ Udom replied quickly, ‘and now we want to get married’.
‘Married!’ the couple exclaimed in unison.
‘Ying, you want to marry this man?’ the woman asked her.
‘Yes, madam, I do. I love him very much.’
‘But you are so young, what do you know about love? What about your mother, Ying? Does she know about this?’
‘No, not yet, but I will write to her and let her know.’
‘Well, Ying and Khun Udom,’ the man said at length, in a harsh tone of voice, ‘these marriage plans are all very well, but Ying still has one more year of her work contract with us remaining, so whatever plans you two may have, they will have to be put on ice at least until then. Come on Ying, we are going home, it’s getting late and the girls have to go to bed.’
***
If only those plans had really been put on ice for year, Ying ruminated ruefully; I might not be in this unholy mess today. But unfortunately, Udom was like a man with a mission and he had been determined to have his beautiful bride and to bring her down south with him to Surat Thani where he planned to open a small restaurant.
Within days, Udom had made representations to Ying’s family at their home and, unknown to Ying at the time, had made some scarcely veiled threats that he would report them to the police of they didn’t let Ying leave with him.
The family had sat down with Ying to discuss her plans and asked her if she was sure she wanted to go with Udom. When she had assured them that this was what she wanted, they tried in vain to persuade her to postpone her plans for year, just to make sure she was making the right decision; but Ying told them her mind was made up and she wanted to go straight away. Eventually, with some reluctance, they gave her their blessing and wished her luck in her new life, making her promise to keep in touch.
*
As she lay in the long grass, her gaunt frame cuddling her baby, she wished that she had listened to them and taken their advice. She thought at the time that they had just wanted to keep her and get another year’s work out of her, but now she realised that they only had her best interests at heart.
How foolish she had been; and what about her mother and her own brothers and sisters? She hadn’t been in touch with them since she had moved south with Udom, some two years ago, and she hadn’t sent them any money. She had always intended to, as soon as the restaurant had got itself established, but Udom had soon put paid to that by adamantly refusing all requests for cash to send home, in spite of his earlier promises.
‘How had her mother managed these past two years?’ she wondered to herself. God forbid that the crippled old lady had been obliged to go back to work in the paddy fields! ‘What are they going to say when I get home? Maybe Mama will disown me and refuse to let me stay. What will I do then?’
***
At first, the plan had seemed so exciting and promised so much for her future life. Things had started well enough. Udom borrowed some money from his parents and he leased a run-down restaurant in Surat, where the two of them worked hard to get it back on its feet. Udom would do all the cooking and Ying would do just about everything else; from getting up at the crack of dawn to take a bus down to the local market and buy the produce, to preparing the food, to waitressing, to washing the dishes and clearing up at the end of the day.
It was hard work and Ying had no time for herself. By the time they closed up in the evening, she would be exhausted and would immediately collapse into a deep sleep as she had to get up very early every morning to do the day’s shopping. At first, business was very slow, but over the weeks and then months, it grew steadily and they were just about able to make ends meet. But every time Ying asked Udom for some money to send to her mother, he made an excuse to postpone sending any – citing the need to buy more food in or some essential, maybe a new item of cooking equipment.
Although Ying fretted more and more about her mother and her family, she was now totally committed to the relationship and lived in hope that business would improve to the point where Udom would be able to give her some money to send back home. Six months after she had moved to the south, Ying’s commitment became even more cemented. She discovered she was pregnant.
As soon as she told Udom that she was carrying his baby, he seemed to lose interest in her as a lover. She still had to work from dawn to dusk to support his shaky business, but as soon as the restaurant was closed up at night, Udom disappeared into the nearby town and wouldn’t return home to the small hours, reeking of cheap, Thai whisky.
*
Ying drifted off to sleep for a few minutes in the long grass but woke up a few minutes later as her dream turned into the usual recurring nightmare; the one where a drunk Udom was beating her baby to death.
*
She had already suffered much in her life, but somehow she had always managed to remain stoically cheerful, but the past year’s events had really started to drag her down to the point where she despaired of ever finding any happiness. She was carrying a baby, had to work like a slave, and received no affection or care from the man that she still deeply cared about, but who was obviously taking his pleasures elsewhere.
The pregnancy had duly gone to full term, despite the harsh conditions in which Ying was living and working and she delivered her son, Mac, at the local hospital, with the minimum of fuss. Udom had been out enjoying himself when Ying had been rushed into hospital one evening by some concerned neighbours, and Udom had only managed to make it to her bedside by the following morning, when he had arrived home drunk in the early hours to find her gone. He immediately checked them out of the hospital and took mother and son back home and put the young mother back to work in the kitchen.
If Ying thought that life was difficult before, she was now finding her daily existence almost unbearable. From the day she delivered her baby, Udom had forced her back to work in the restaurant. He warned her that if she didn’t work, there would be no food for her and baby Mac.
So work she did, much as before, but now she had her baby to take care of at the same time and life became ever more desperate. Unfortunately, things were to get even worse. Udom’s increasing propensity for alcohol had reached the point where he would drink during the day, while working in the kitchen.
The result of this was that he was becoming more and more violent towards his family. The slightest mistake or failure to do things exactly how he wanted them done would result in a hard slap and even the occasional punch to Ying’s delicate face. Even the young baby was not spared. Sometimes, when Ying was too busy working to take care of the baby and stop him crying, Udom would grab the baby, hold him out in front of him and shake him violently.
Ying was terrified that Udom might do permanent damage to the baby, or even kill him in a drunken fit of temper. She decided that enough was enough and that she had to get out of this miserable, loveless and abusive relationship. How to get out? It was a problem. Now Udom was drinking during the day on a regular basis, he didn’t go out very often, as it was cheaper to drink at home. By late evening, when the restaurant closed, he would usually collapse in a drunken stupor and sleep the night away.
She had managed to secretly save enough money to buy a bus fare to get herself and her son out of the south and back to Sa Kaeo. She knew she wouldn’t be welcome back home and she knew that her mother would be very angry with her, but she had nowhere else to go. The problem was how to leave without Udom discovering what she was up to and preventing her from going? He would be lost without her as he would have no-one to do all the work that his ‘wife’ was doing for nothing. Even if she proved physically strong enough to get away from him, she could never do so carrying a young baby, barely six months old. Udom might grab the baby and make all manner of dire threats in order to keep her there with him.
She resolved to wait until Udom went out one night, but day followed day and week followed week and he never went out; he just drunk himself to sleep every night at home. In the end, Ying gave up waiting and had decided to take a chance when he fell asleep.
***
Dawn had broken and the two ‘runaways’ were entering the most vulnerable period of the early morning. What would she do if Udom discovered them? She was far too weak to fight him, and there was no one around who could help her. As tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep and she hoped and prayed that the long awaited bus would arrive soon. Please God, don’t let it be late. She lay on the ground and stared through the bushes at the road beyond, determined to stay awake, now that the time to go was drawing ever closer…
*
Suddenly, a loud thump crashed through the early morning stillness and she awoke with a start. She opened her bleary eyes and made out the sight of a bus, revving up its noisy diesel engine – its filthy smoke billowing out of an ancient exhaust. She was so sleepy that it took a few moments before she fully realised what was happening. The thump had been the sound of the bus door closing and the revving engine meant that the bus was about to leave! As she wearily scrambled to her feet, she heard the unmistakeable crunch of the engine being put into gear and before she could so much as shout out to them, the bus slowly moved away from the bus stop.
Ying panicked. She left Mac where he was lying and rushed out into the road in time to see the bus moving off into the distance. She tried to run after the bus, screaming and crying at the top of her voice, in the futile hope that someone might see her or hear her. The bus kept gathering speed and she knew it was hopeless. She kept running, but after a few steps, she tripped on a pot hole and fell head first onto the middle of the tarmac.
It was the final straw – she knew that all was now lost; she lay prostrate on the road, breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing, with her eyes tightly closed in a desperate attempt to shut out the world and her desperate situation.
*
Her mind was in a whirl; it seemed as though she had been lying there for an eternity when she was suddenly brought back to harsh reality by someone’s hand, gently touching her shoulder. She turned over to see two men looking down at her anxiously.
‘Are you all right Miss?’
She looked at them, terrified for a brief moment that they may have some connection with Udom, but one of them had a sort of uniform and they both looked very concerned for her.
‘Yes,’ she replied, between, sobs, ‘I think so. Who are you?’
‘Miss, were you waiting for the bus?’
‘Yes, I was, but how do you know? Anyway, it’s too late, it’s gone, and the next one won’t be along until tomorrow. Oh my God what will I do?’ she cried, and once again tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
‘Miss, Miss, come on, sit up.’
She looked at them through her tear-filled eyes and slowly sat up.
‘Now,’ the man in the uniform said, what do you see, along the road, in the distance?’
She looked and she saw and her heart gave a leap of joy. There, barely visible in the far distance of the morning gloom was the distinct outline of a bus, stationary in the centre of the road.
‘But…But… I don’t understand… how could you have heard me?’
‘We didn’t,’ replied the young uniformed man, who Ying now realised was the bus conductor, ‘you can thank the two women who we just picked up. They told me about you sleeping in the bushes with your baby, but in the rush to get on the bus they had forgotten all about you, so they persuaded the driver to stop. Then they asked me to come and get you.’
Ying could barely take it all in. ‘Oh I don’t know how to thank you,’
‘Just get your things – and your baby - and hurry, we are already late!’
‘My baby! Oh My God! My baby!’
She needn’t have worried. Little Mac was still fast asleep where she had left him and five minutes later, she wearily but thankfully climbed on board the ancient bus, quickly settling herself and Mac into her single seat.
Her eyes brimmed with tears yet again; but this time they weren’t the tears of sorrow and despair, they were tears of relief and happiness that at long last, she was now safely on her way out of Surat Thani and away from the malevolent Udom, hopefully forever.
PART TWO – CHAPTER V
Ying sat alone at the far corner table of Siam Coffee shop, staring out of the window onto On Nut Road, wondering if her friend, Gay, was still coming, or whether had she been stood up. She couldn’t really blame Gay if she had decided not come, as after all, she hadn’t been in touch with her friend for several months. She had more or less dropped her like a stone, ever since she had stopped working at the Galaxy Night Club and moved in with Don.
She suddenly realised what a good friend Gay had been to her, and how kind she had been when she had first come to Bangkok looking for work. If it hadn’t been for Gay, helping her through those first difficult weeks, who knows what might have happened to her – a timid, vulnerable 18 year old girl, with no experience in the wicked ways of Thailand’s notorious capital city.
*
It had been more than a year since she had once again taken the bus from her Mother’s home in Sa Kaeo and made the journey to Bangkok in search of work to support Baby Mac and the rest of her family. She had embarked on this journey to Bangkok only a few weeks after her emotional arrival back at her family’s village, following her perilous trip from the South of Thailand. She had used up the last of her precious savings to hire a tuk tuk to take her and Mac from the bus terminal in Sa Kaeo City to her family’s village, some fifteen kilometres away, and had been dreading what the reception would be. But she needn’t have worried.
Ying’s mother was a hard woman, but she was also a compassionate and loving mother. She had taken one look at her half-starved daughter and grandchild, arriving in the back of a rusty, smoke-belching tuk-tuk and she hobbled over to them at a surprising turn of speed; literally lifting the two of them out of their seats and hugging them to her ample bosoms, with her tears flowing down her gnarled, sun blackened cheeks.
Ying was as thin as a rake and barely weighed 40 kilos; her baby was also very thin and undernourished. Her brothers and sister had gathered round to comfort their eldest sister when they saw her state and learned of the ordeal she had been through and within a short while, her entire extended family – aunts and uncles and cousins who lived nearby – also came to welcome her home and to hear of her exploits during the past few years.
Ying’s mother had managed to make ends meet by once again borrowing money on the small piece of land that she owned and it soon became clear to Ying that the money was fast running out and that something had to be done as a matter of urgency. She had been home for three weeks when she came to the conclusion that it was going to be down to her, yet again, to bail her family out. But what could she do? Where could she find work?
This dilemma had been temporary put on hold by the unexpected arrival of Udom in the village. Ying had never expected for one moment that Udom would find out where her family lived, much less bother to follow her there. It transpired that within days of Ying fleeing, Udom had been obliged to do a ‘moonlight flit’ from the restaurant himself due to mounting, unpaid debts and he had gone to Bangkok to obtain Ying’s address from the family she used to work for.
Ying locked herself inside her mother’s house and refused to speak to him, but he refused to leave and spoke to Ying’s mother who eventually agreed that she would try to persuade Ying to come out and settle things between them.
After much coaxing, Ying had eventually emerged from her home to confront her now despised ex-partner.
‘Ying,’ Udom began, ‘I am so sorry for everything. I know I treated you very badly and I promise I will change. I have learnt my lesson; please come back to me. I will treat you properly and take care of little Mac. I swear I will. Give me another chance, I beg you…’
‘No! Never!’ she had shouted angrily back to him. ‘You treated me like a slave and nearly killed my baby!’ I will never forgive you….’
‘Please Ying,’ the young man begged, please come back to me, I love you so much…’
‘Love me! Love me!’ she had shouted in an ever shriller tone, ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. Get out! Get out of my village and keep away from my family!’
‘Please Ying…. Please…’
She had taken an enormous risk to get herself and her baby away from his drunken clutches and she was not about to go back. ‘Udom, It’s all over! I never want to see your ugly face again. I hate you. If you don’t go now, I will set the villagers on you.
Udom quickly realised that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Ying and he left the village the same day. But it took another week or two before he gave up completely. After all, despite her thin stature, Ying was flowering into a very beautiful young lady and he now regretted the way he had treated her. He realised that he was still in love with her and desperately wanted her and his son back with him. Every two or three days he would return to Ying’s village in the vain hope that time would heal Ying’s anger and that she would eventually relent and return to live with him.
*
As she waited for her friend, she sipped on her cold cup of coffee and reflected on these recent events with a grimace, Udom had finally realised that he was wasting his time when, on the last occasion that he came to try and change her mind, his beloved had already long gone.
Later, Ying’s sister had written to her to tell her that when Udom had realised he was no longer there, he had broken down in tears. Then he had started drinking and became very drunk, threatening her mother with violence if she didn’t tell him where her daughter was staying. Eventually, the villagers got hold of him bodily and threw him out of the village and nobody had seen him since.
*
While all this aggravation had been going on with Udom, one of Ying’s many older half-sisters, on her father’s side, had come to visit her and told her that her best chance of work was to go to Bangkok. The sister had taken one look at Ying and realised that Ying was fast becoming an exceptional beauty and that it wouldn’t be hard for her to find work in Bangkok’s burgeoning nightlife industry.
‘With your looks, you won’t have any problem finding work in one of the night clubs that cater to the rich Thai businessmen,’ she had advised Ying.
‘But…but what will that involve? I couldn’t face having to sleep with them! I can’t do that! It would be terrible!’
‘Don’t worry; you won’t have to, not if you don’t want to. You will get a small salary and if you are popular with the customers – as I am sure will will be with your looks – you can earn a lot of money from drinks and tips. Some of those millionaire Thais can be very generous.’
‘But what will I have to do?’ asked Ying naively.
‘Do? You just sit with the customers and chat to them.
‘Is that all?’
Well you may have to let them hold you sometimes, and if you have a special customer, you may have to let him kiss you sometimes, but that’s all’
Ying had shivered to herself. ‘Sounds horrible!’
‘Horrible!’ her sister repeated, ‘well, maybe, but it’s better than starving. Mind you, if I had your looks, I would be looking for a ‘sugar daddy’; some rich elderly man who would put me in a nice apartment and look after me and my family; but of course, for all that, I would have to sleep with him whenever he wanted
‘That sounds terrible! The innocent young teenager replied. I can’t imagine sleeping with a man who I wasn’t in love with….’
*
That conversation had occurred only fifteen months ago and oh, so much water had flowed under the bridge since then, she thought to herself. She had decided that Gay was definitely not coming and was about to call the waiter and pay the bill, when the door flew open and in came her errant friend.
Gay was in her early thirties, but still a very good looking lady; she was born and bred in Bangkok with a good figure, slightly fleshy but still exciting, sexy legs, and an attractive, well-proportioned face; but her most attractive attribute of all was her silky, white skin – so admired and sought after by many of the night club’s clientele.
Gay had met Ying late one evening when she had taken pity on her. She had spotted her when she had come into the night club where she was working to speak to the manager. The young girl had been dressed in a dirty, ill-fitting T-shirt, with cheap, baggy jeans and tattered flip flops, revealing blackened feet and dirty broken toe-nails. The clothes had done Ying’s skinny frame no favours and no one could be blamed for assuming that the girl had just emerged from one of the many slum markets to sell ‘who knows what’ wares.
It was clear that Ying had been asking for a job and it was also clear that the manager was telling her in no uncertain fashion that there were no jobs at th Galaxy Night Club for the likes of riff raff like her and that she had better be gone – sharpish - before he set one of his bouncers on her. Ying had started walking towards the door, when Gay hurried over and asked her where she was going?
‘Going?’ Ying responded, almost in tears. ‘I don’t know where I’m going. I was told that I could find work in this area, but I’ve been wandering the streets for hours and nobody will even give me the time of day?’ she said, looking desperate.
After Gay had managed to take a closer look at the young girl, her earlier suspicions were confirmed. Underneath all those terrible, ill-fitting clothes, the young lady standing in front of her was quite a beauty. ‘Why hadn’t that stupid manger realised that?’ she asked herself. ‘Look, she said to Ying, I know you don’t know me, but my name is Gay and I work here as a hostess. Is that what you want to be? A Hostess?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I do, but nobody will talk to me.’ I must have been to half a dozen nightclubs around here and always the same answer – No! Get lost!’
‘That’s because they are all stupid and can’t see how pretty you are. Listen, what is your name and where are you staying?’
‘Staying? I’m not staying anywhere. My name is Ying; I just arrived from Sa Kaeo this morning and haven’t found anywhere to stay yet. I was hoping to find a job first, but now I don’t know what to do…’
Gay had been working the Thai nightclub circuit for almost ten nears and the experience had hardened her, but like so many of her ilk, she was still a glutton for a hard luck story. In fact it was probably this ‘compassionate’ side to her nature that had led her into so many disastrous affairs and meant that she was still working for drinks and tips at a time when her looks were starting to fade and she should have long since settled down with a steady boyfriend.
‘Look Ying, I think you are a very pretty young lady and I’m sure you can get a job here or in one of the other clubs in the area, but nobody will look at you when you are dressed like that. You just don’t look like a hostess.’
‘But these are the only clothes I have.’
Gay looked at the desperate girl for a few seconds.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you want to wait outside for me, when I finish work tonight you can come home with me and I’ll see what I can do about finding you some work tomorrow.’
Ying looked at her new found acquaiantance, and instinctively realised that she really wanted to help her and was probably telling her the truth. ‘That’s very kind of you. Do you really think I can get a job?’
‘I’m sure you can, I just need to make you more presentable. Now, promise that you’ll wait for me; I usually finish work at around 2 a.m. but I’ll try to get away early tonight.’
She opened her handbag and pulled out a hundred Baht note. ‘Here, take this and go and get something to eat and be back outside the nightclub at midnight. And wait for me. I’ll try to come out as soon as I can and then we can go back to my room.’
Ying looked at the woman in astonishment. She couldn’t believe that someone was actually being kind and helping her.
‘Come on, take it, I have to get back to work.’
She thrust the money into Ying’s reluctant hands and rushed off back to her customer, thinking: ‘She’ll either get herself a good meal and then disappear for ever or, if she’s got any sense, she will be waiting for me when I finish work tonight. It’s up to her, but either way, I wish her well. She looked so unhappy – so desperate…’
*
Gay sat down breathlessly opposite Ying at the small table and apologised for being late.
‘You know how it is Ying, I had a very late night,’ she added with a smile.’ Now what’s all this about? You’ve finally found time to meet up with your old friend again then have you? She asked, still smiling.
‘Oh Gay, I am so sorry. I know I have been selfish and unthinking,’ Ying responded. ‘I am so sorry; I should have called you before. I wanted to call so many times, but something always came up and I kept putting it off.’
Gay looked at the friend who she hadn’t set eyes on for many months. She was as beautiful as she remembered and it would seem that her dress sense was as good as ever. She was dressed like a fashion model; truly looking like a million, very sexy and desirable dollars, but one look at her eyes and Gay knew that Ying was in a very unhappy state of mind.
‘Ying’, she said, ‘do you remember that first night we met – when you came to galaxy looking for work?’
‘How could I ever forget,’ Ying answered with a weak smile, temporarily putting all her troubles to one side. I was so innocent and shy and I was dressed in those awful clothes. I can’t bear to think what may have happened to me if I hadn’t met you. You were so good to me.’
*
Her mind went back to that awful night when she had waited for two hours outside the club, slowly losing all hope that Gay would eventually appear and wondering where she was going to spend the night as all her money was gone; she was completely broke. Then much later, her tears of happiness and relief when Gay had finally emerged, full of apologies and whisked her into a waiting taxi to take them back to her little room about two kilometres away.
The two girls had fallen asleep almost as soon as they had arrived at Gay’s room, but the following morning, Gay filled her new found fiend full of food and then proceeded to find some clothes from her overflowing wardrobe that would suit the young, budding hostess. It wasn’t easy, as they were of different heights and Ying was so emaciated that almost everything seemed to hang off her, but eventually, with a bit of creativity, they found a flimsy white top and a very short jeans miniskirt that transformed the ‘upcountry rice picker’ into a gorgeous, very alluring slim young lady with smooth, slim legs that seemed to go forever.
Gay then took Ying to a nearby beauty salon where the staff went to work on Ying’s long, but unkempt hair and transformed it into glistening, black silky tresses and although her young, flawless complexion didn’t really need it, they applied delicate, understated makeup to her quite exquisite face.
The Galaxy manger didn’t even recognised the badly dressed kid of the previous evening and immediately offered her a job
*
‘Gay,’ Ying said, recalling that day, ‘you have been such a good friend; I don’t know I can ever thank you.’
‘There’s nothing to thank me for,’ Gay said. I would have done the same for anyone. You looked so sad and desperate when I saw you that night. Besides, I was being selfish – I was doing it for me, not you; I am a Buddhist, I was making merit for my next life,’ she said with a cheeky grin.
Ying laughed with her, but Gay knew that there was an underlying sadness in her eyes. ‘Ying what happened? We used to be so happy together at the Gay, do you remember?’
‘Of course I do, Gay, yes they were good times,’ she answered, thinking back to those happy, crazy, fun-filled first months she spent as a nightclub hostess.
You remember ‘Paw’? Gay asked, referring to one of Ying’s regular customers.
‘Yes of course I do.’ How is he?’
‘He’s fine. He still asks about you. I think he’s still in love with you. And… Don?’
‘Yes Don,’ Ying replied with a shudder, her smile suddenly vanishing.
‘Don – is he still with you?’
‘Yes Gay, he is still with me.’
There was a long silence between the two friends; both of them thought back to happier times.
*
At first, Ying had been extremely shy and tried to avoid having to sit with the customers but after a few days, she slowly got into the swing of things and started to understand what was required of her as a hostess. There was no obligation for her to go home with a client or to a motel for a ‘short time’ – although many of the girls did just that to supplement their income – but she was required to sit with customers and let them hold her hands, occasionally cuddle her and even, on the odd occasion, kiss her. She had found this quite distasteful when she first started working, but within a short while, after she had discovered the joys of alcohol, she found it easier and even enjoyable to smooch with the better looking ‘clients’.
She was young, very pretty and her figure was starting to fill out after the years of semi-starvation in her village and at Surat Thani. She was fast becoming a highly sought after lady at her new place of work. Many customers would go there, specifically to spend a few happy hours in the company of the delectable Ying, only to leave disappointed, as she had already been commandeered for the evening by another customer who had beaten them to it.
Most of the club’s clientele would buy a bottle of premium grade whisky or brandy to drink with her and after a few weeks, Ying found that she was more than capable of holding her own – drinking glass for glass of whisky – or brandy – with her wealthy customers. Ying had started to acquire a real taste for alcohol.
Even without sleeping around, she was earning good money from her ‘drinks’ and tips so for the first time in more than two years, she was able to send a small amount of money home to her mother. But it wasn’t enough and her mother still had the loan hanging over her head. Ying didn’t know what to do as she had no intention of selling her body for money.
She had been working as a hostess for about three months when, apart from the countless men who tried, without success, to make her their special girlfriend, she had realised that she was becoming quite serious with two – very different – Thai men. The first was in his early fifties. He was a lawyer and he owned his own law practice in the nearby district of Prakanong. He admitted to Ying that he was married, but had long since separated from his wife.
He was a very kind, gentle man who was more of a father-figure to Ying than a boy-friend. In fact, he was so eager to give advice to this naïve young lady who had little or no experience of life outside of Sa Kaeo, that almost from the start, she called him ‘Paw’, the Thai word for ‘father’. Ying’s real father had been shot dead, right in front of her, when she was eight years’ old and she was certainly in need of an older, wiser person to steer her through the ‘pitfalls’ of life in Thailand’s teeming, exciting and sometimes dangerous capital city.
Paw wanted Ying to come and live with him at his house in a soi off Prakanong, and effectively be his mia noi – minor wife. He told Ying that he would take care of her and treat her very well. Ying had already told Paw about her family’s financial troubles back home in Sa Kaeo and Paw had promised to pay off her mother’s debts, if she agreed to go and live with him.
Ying wasn’t sure what to do. She had grown quite fond of this likeable, kindly old man, but she could never love him – he was just too old for her. But she wanted to help her poor mother and her younger brothers and sister back home in Sa Kaeo, and this seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity to do just that. Paw was obviously quite well off and she was sure that he would keep his promises. She just couldn’t bring herself to make that final jump.
In the event, she came to a somewhat different decision a couple of weeks later. The second significant man in her life was a very handsome young man called Don. Don had fashionably long hair, was tall, slim and dressed in the latest styles – beautiful, skin tight, silk shirts which showed off his slim, athletic torso and the latest fashion jeans. He used to come to the club several times a week with a group of friends, similarly attired and the girls would almost fight each other for the chance to sit with these fun-loving, big spending, handsome young men.
Don had long since made a bee-line for Ying and within a short time he was totally smitten. He was determined to make her his ‘own’ and single-mindedly set about winning her with a diligence and determination that belied his reputation as a playboy. Before he met Ying, Don had always played the field as far as women were concerned but Ying had changed all that.
Ying had been flattered and was literally swept off her feet by this crazy, attractive youth who seemed to be the very antithesis of the dour, spiteful Udom, her first lover. When, one momentous night, Dom implored Ying to leave her job at the nightclub and come and stay with him as his girlfriend, Ying took little time in jumping at the opportunity, but not before she had broken the sad news to Paw, that she had fallen in love with another man.
Paw had seen Don at the night club with his friends and had suffered pangs of jealousy as he watched Don and Ying together, their hands all over each other, clearly infatuated. But he tried to keep a sense of perspective about it and realised that he would be no match for such a person. He wanted Ying to be happy, but he was concerned about her plans to stop work and shack up with the young man. He warned Ying that although he didn’t know Don personally, he had seen such people many times at clubs through the years and he could tell the type. He felt sure that Don wasn’t all that he purported to be and warned Ying to be very careful.
In truth, Ying knew very little about Don’s background, or indeed what he did for a living, but that didn’t seem to matter in the whirlwind that overcame her as she packed her belongings and moved in with Don at his apartment, off Sukhumvit Road.
The problems first surfaced when Ying asked Don for some money to send back home to her mother. Don immediately lost his temper and screamed at her that he wasn’t going to support her family. She had then burst into tears, whereupon Don calmed down, came over to where she was sitting and put his hands over her shoulders, to comfort her. He seemed full of remorse for his outburst and told Ying that he would ‘see what he could do’ to find some extra money for her family.
But more rows were to follow, and although the two were clearly crazy about each other, there were issues between them which forever got in the way of a happy relationship. For one thing, Don was very vague about his family and background, and was even vaguer about what he did for a living. He seemed to go out at strange hours and return at even stranger hours, refusing to tell Ying where he had been and what he had been doing.
This would inevitably result in rows, as Ying was extremely jealous and feared the worst. Don would usually solve the problem by taking Ying to bed and totally mesmerising her with his incredibly energetic, sexual prowess. They would make love for so long that in the end, the two were too exhausted to fight any longer.
*
‘So what’s happened?’ Gay asked at last. ‘What’s going on between you and Don? You are obviously not happy. Has the bastard got another girl friend?’
‘Another girlfriend? Ying repeated, absent mindedly. ‘No, Gay, not a girlfriend… nothing like that.’
‘What then?’
‘What then…’ Ying repeated, thinking back…
*
For many months, life had stumbled along for Ying; a mixture of heady highs and depressing lows. Highs when she was with her man, in bed making love, and lows when he disappeared, sometimes for days at a time, leaving her stuck in the apartment, wondering if he would ever come back again. It didn’t take Ying long to realise that whatever Don did for a living, it almost certainly wasn’t legal. She could see by the hours he kept, the snatches of telephone conversation she overheard and other tell-tale incidents – like Don returning after an absence of two days wearing brand new clothes and flashing bundles of money, some of which he would begrudgingly give to Ying to send home.
Ying could have learnt to tolerate this topsy-turvy lifestyle if it hadn’t been another, more sinister event. One morning, after a night of passion, she awoke to find her boyfriend injecting heroin into a vein in his left arm. She was horrified and berated Don for doing such a terrible thing. But Don just smiled the smile of an addict who was rapidly getting ‘high’, and fell fast asleep.
Later, after Don had returned from yet another two day absence, she raised the subject of his heroin use with him, but he laughed it off, telling her that it was a ‘one off’ and assured her that he had never done it again. She didn’t really believe him and sure enough, two days later, she found him in the bathroom ‘shooting himself up’ once again. This time, a row ensued when Ying tried to take the syringe away from Don and in the end Don became violent, grabbed Ying by the hair and threw her out of the bathroom and locked the door.
From then on there had been an uneasy truce between the pair. Don would continue to take heroin and Ying had become withdrawn and quiet. She was scared to intervene any more but was even more scared of what was happening to Don and their relationship.
Don had changed. He was no longer the fun-loving, caring young man who had asked her to go and live with him. He was either away from home, getting up to ‘God knows’ what?’, or he stayed at home, sleeping the days away and ‘high’ on heroin for most of the time. They barely made love anymore and Ying feared for herself, her family and her boyfriend’s sanity.
Then today, when Don had ‘come down’ from his latest dose of heroin and before he injected another one, she had sat him down and tried to talk to him. She told him that they couldn’t go on like this anymore. She still loved him but couldn’t bear to see him like this. Don told her that he loved her and would try to quit. She informed him that if he didn’t quit she would leave him – her mind was made up.
Don had become very emotional. During his brief, ‘sober’ state, he knew that he was destroying himself and their relationship.
‘Ying, I love you and I can’t live without you,’ he had told her.
‘Don, think very, very hard about what I have said. I mean it Don, I will really leave you if you take another shot of heroin. I just can’t take it anymore.’
‘I will try; I promise,’ he had replied. ‘If you leave me, my life is over,’
‘Then you know what you have to do,’ she had said. ‘I am going out to see my friend Gay. We haven’t seen each other for so long. When I come back, I hope you will still be free of drugs.’
He had looked at her – a desperate, frightened look on his face, tears forming at the corners of his eyes and he told her he would try his best to do what she had asked of him.
Without a backward glance, Ying picked up her bag and left the apartment, for her date with Gay, leaving Don to contemplate her ultimatum.
*
‘Don… I’m sorry Gay, I don’t think I want to talk about it.’
‘But you look so unhappy, Ying.’
‘Yes, I know; but today we had a long talk and maybe it’s Ok. Maybe everything will be fine now. Anyway, I’ll find out when I get home. Now, what have you been up to? Come on, tell me what’s been going on with everyone at The Galaxy over the past few months. I’m dying to know,’ she asked with a slightly forced smile.
Gay told her that she had taken the day off from work so that they could spend the afternoon and evening together, talking about old times. She related to Ying about her former friends who were still working there, and about the ones who had left because they had found regular boyfriends or had become mia nois (minor wives) to older, rich business men and about the many, regular customers who still enquired after her.
When they were completely ‘coffee-logged’ they adjourned to Gay’s room nearby and continued to catch up on gossip. It was one of the happiest few hours that Ying had enjoyed for quite a while. For a short period of time, she almost forgot about Don back in their apartment, fighting his heroin addiction.
So it was after ten when Ying made the journey home. She was dreading what she may find, as she had a strong suspicion that Don would not have the will power to stay away from the heroin.
But nothing could have prepared her for what she did find. She opened the front door and the apartment was in darkness. There was no sign of Don in the sitting room so at first she assumed that he must have gone out. But then she heard a familiar noise coming from the kitchen. It was the sound of a kitchen ceiling fan revolving on its axis in the corner of the room,
‘He must have forgotten to turn it off’, she thought to herself as she wandered into the kitchen.
She snapped on the light and almost fainted in shock at the sight in front of her. Her beloved Don was hanging from a short piece of rope, his head at an ungainly angle, his feet dangling about nine inches from the floor, a kitchen chair upended a couple of feet away. He was dead. He had hung himself. She stood and stared at his limp body, with the whirring fan rattling back and forth, slightly ruffling the dead man’s hair as it passed a particular point in its rotation.
‘Oh No! Don! Don!’ she screamed. ‘I didn’t mean it! ‘You can do what you like! – I don’t care! – I love you, Don! Please, please don’t do this,’ she screamed, with her tears streaming down her cheeks. She rushed up to him and grabbed him around the waist, trying to pull his body to the ground, failing miserably.
His neck wouldn’t budge from the rope that tethered him, so she just clung onto him, wailing a terrible wail of grief, as the whirring fan continued its inexorable course – across the room and back again – intermittently ruffling the hair of the two bodies; one still full of frantic, distressed life and the other – cold and ugly – hanging in untimely and premature death.
***
