Thai Girl by Andrew Hicks Page A

go home to have the baby. Then she’ll come back to work leaving the child at home with Mum. If he’s a good guy, they’ll register the marriage, he’ll contribute to the child’s upkeep and she’ll be faithful to him. But he may go and work somewhere else and find another girlfriend. So she just keeps on serving food and wiping tables … if the tourist trade doesn’t collapse. There are worse places than Koh Samet, but it’s not much of a life. What do you think, Sam?’
    â€˜No … maybe not,’ she said shifting in her seat.
    â€˜Of course, many of the girls dream of marrying a farang … which means big money. And they think Europeans make good husbands! How about that, ladies?’ said Maca with a silly grin.
    â€˜Sod the men,’ said Samantha, ‘I’m sticking with Nadia.’
    Nobody laughed and Maca and Ben exchanged glances.
    Such evenings go on indefinitely, the warm night, the unlimited alcohol, good food and company giving little reason to leave. More bottles of beer were emptied while the serving girls waited late into the night, their early breakfast shift coming ever closer.
    It was Emma who made the first move to go to bed, followed by the other women.
    â€˜Ben, you didn’t let me sleep last night, staying out late with the lowlife, so I’m turning in. Are you coming?’
    Ben looked a little apprehensive.
    â€˜Yeah, well soon anyway. Just one more beer.’

    Maca, Chuck, Stig and Ben stayed up into the small hours, gazing dopily into the flame of the oil lamp as they discussed whether Samantha and Nadia were gay. A few hundred yards away in the hut, Emma lay on the hard bed unable to sleep. Thailand was still not the escape from reality she had hoped for and she knew she would soon have to face up to making some serious decisions of her own. She pretended to be asleep when Ben at last blundered clumsily into the hut.
    An hour or two later they were both roughly woken by the storm. An unseasonable squall of rain swept across the island, the wind howling through the trees, causing the tin roof of the hut to crash and strain as if it was about to be ripped away. It was almost morning when the storm subsided and they finally fell asleep.

8
    In the early hours, the rain pounded on the tin roof of the hut with tropical ferocity. For what little remained of the night, Ben was dimly aware of the hum of the distant generator that supplied power to the resort and of the pounding of the waves, still agitated from the night’s storm. He could hear the drips falling from the trees and running off the eaves onto the ground and could smell the rich scent of wet earth.
    At his home in Haywards Heath the dawn is always silent except for the hum of traffic and the clink of milk bottles. The birds are either too chilled to sing or have been decimated by domestic cats. But Ben was learning that here in Thailand the world wakes up noisily. First are the cockerels, very early and very vocal. The dogs often join in, barking and howling at each other. Then comes a chorus of bird song, including sometimes the distant pulsing cry of a nightjar. Ching-choks, the tiny near-transparent lizards that inhabit every building and climb like Spiderman across walls and ceilings, make a distinctive sound like clicking tongues. An invisible gecko lizard is more intrusive, loudly repeating ‘tukkae, tukkae’ from somewhere under the floor. Happy with the flow of rain water into the hollows, the bullfrogs are in full throat calling their ladies with their bizarre ‘oink-oink, oink-oink’. And as the morning begins to heat up, insects hidden in the trees one by one begin a continuous chorus of high-pitched shrieking.
    Around the huts can be heard the sounds of talking and laughter as the daily routine begins at first light. The workers’ flip-flops slop down the path as their home-made brooms swish away the night’s fall of leaves. After