Well, look at it this way, telak, Soom is still only young and cannot speak English anyway well, not fluently, eh? So, maybe it is better to get Craig to teach her before you all go over there anyway. That will take a couple of years and by then he may want to go home again. Dont worry. As you say, you have plenty of time. Lets see what fate has in store for you all.
Lek had told a white lie to Craig, she hadnt been invited to lunch, well, not a prepared lunch anyway. The two friends wanted to cook lunch together as they might have done if they were back in the village, where it is normal for visitors to help prepare the food. There, if you are not asked or allowed to help, you know that you are not being considered a close friend.
So, the first job was to call another old friend from the village, Noi, who also worked at Daddys Hobby but as night watch woman. She had arranged to get off early to be with her oldest friends. They met up in the market and when Noi and Lek saw each other they ran at each other and hugged.
Oh, Noi, I have missed our chats together. I tried to wait for you to come on shift at the bar last night, but we were so tired and the taxi came early. Still, here we are together again, all three of us. Like The Three Sisters, three peas in a pod, eh? and they walked off arm-in-arm to shop for their favourite foods.
They spent an hour shopping, an hour washing, chopping, preparing and cooking the food and an hour eating it, although, in proper Thai country style, they prepared three or four dishes and started eating them first, but cooked other courses at the same time, so that there were always half-eaten and totally fresh, different courses on the table at the same time
By the time they had finished they were truly stuffed and there were still kilos of food both cooked and unprepared. After an hour dozing, chatting and watching TV, Beou, put the left-overs into cartons and put the cartons into three carrier bags so that they were shared equally.
Noi would take hers home, because she had to meet her daughter after school, but Lek and Beou werent finished yet. They would take theirs to Daddys Hobby and start the party up again, but with a lot more people this time.
Craig thought that he had got away with a free pass as he nodded to the security guard on his way out of the hotel compound, but in fact he had been granted one, so that Lek could do what she wanted. He thought he would stroll quietly down Soi Buakhao, the same way Lek had gone, but turn off before the end and make his way down to one of his favourite places the Pig and Whistle on Soi Seven, which was not far from Beous bar.
He intended to stop at quite a few of the intervening bars along the way though and get to Daddys Hobby between four-thirty and five late, as is normal in Thailand. He knew that Lek wouldnt consider an hour as being late.
As he had hoped, every bar along the way was devoid of customers, because it was still too early for most people, but they were full of bored bar girls and he got come-ons from every bar. They took a standard form, which was usually: Hello, sexy man or /and Come have drink with me. He took more than a few up on their kind offer, but he had no intention of doing any more than drink a few beers.
Most of the girls were beautiful and scantily-clad. Not many of them could speak English well enough to hold a decent conversation, but if the truth be known, they werent really interested in talking either. If you didnt want sex and you wouldnt buy them a drink, you were soon left to your own devices. This was not a problem, because there were literally hundreds of bars on his chosen route and thousands of girls. He could not possibly have even one small beer in even five percent of them.
There were usually some nice surprises too though. You would meet a girl who was willing to just talk for a beer or even for nothing, because it kept you spending money in her empty bar and because she was bored out of her mind. If there were clients then it was only fair to move on. These were the sort of contacts that Craig was hoping for today. Just a few nice chats with young, beautiful, half-naked, female strangers.
He always made a point of telling the girls the truth, although he would never reveal were he was staying. After all, the last thing you need is some drunken, desperate woman knocking on your hotel room when you and your wife are asleep. And that had been known to have happened, or so he had been told. You never knew what to believe in Pattaya, but it sounded plausible enough to make him cautious.
Today he could tell the girls that this was the first day of his holiday. That always caught there attention, because it could mean that you will stay with them for a month (most people go for a months holiday), or at least take them out often or it could mean that you didnt know your arse from your elbow with regard to Thai bar girls, so they would get more money out of you. The second question was usually: How long you stay here and the third, though less important question for most girls was: You have Thai girlfriend already?
Most girls didnt mind ousting another Thai if she didnt know them and some didnt care whether they did or not, but those were rarer much rarer. It was usually the older, desperate pros who fell into that category and the loners and the free-lancers.
As a bar girl had once told him: We bar girls dont cheat on wives, we are just the rope that cheating, husbands hang themselves with.
In time, he got to the Pig and went inside to see who was there. It was four oclock, not the busiest of times, which revolved around meals: midday, five to six and seven to ten, but there were a few faces sitting at the bar that he recognized from his previous visits months before.
Hello, Craig, how are you?, When did you get back?, said a voice from down the bar. It was one of the people who either owned or managed the bar/restaurant-cum-hotel.
Im fine thanks, Rob. How are you? We got back yesterday evening.
Hows that little darling of yours, Lek, isnt it? I thought I saw her walk past here a few minutes ago with another woman arm-in-arm, but I thought, no, that cant be Lek, shes in Wales with that Taff.
It probably was her with her cousin, maybe. She went for lunch at her house and Im supposed to be meeting her at about now. But shes all right, can you ask one of the staff for a pint of Guinness, please? Do you want one?
Nah, not for me, thanks. Ive got an hour off, then Im on till closing. Itll start getting busy soon. Cant be pissed on parade, can I? Well, not every night anyway.
The pint of Guinness duly arrived. The taste of burnt wood or charcoal that characterized Guinness for Craig was always a lot stronger in Asia than in Europe. Probably because of the water supply there he thought.
Whats the news then, Rob? Anything monumental happen while I was away? A few more Scandinavians fell off their balconies pissed, I suppose?
Nothing much has been going on. The season has been quiet and hot. Except for Songkhran, of course. That was busy, but then it always is. Even if there were no falangs the Thais would make up for it. Its always good. A couple of jumpers, yes, if you believe that. I think most of them get pushed. Pissed, robbed and pushed. Not only Scandinavians either. Quite a few Germans too.
Rob left and Craig had another Guinness. Nobody else seemed to recognize him and he couldnt be bothered to start a conversation with any more strangers, so he just sat there and watched the girls walking to work and the falang coming back from the beach, wondering about where all this living in Thailand lark would eventually take him.