Owen Jones - An Exciting Future

They arrived in Daddy’s Hobby after an uneventful journey. Lek had tried to talk to the driver a few times, but he thought that she was drunk so he ignored her and tried to speak to Craig, but in Thai, which Craig could not speak, so that quickly fizzled out too and Lek, being ignored, soon fell asleep, which was probably the best thing she could have done anyway.

Lek had wanted to speak Thai though. She was excited to be back in her own country, where she could hold a proper conversation in her own language and where she could feel that she belonged again. They had had a few months in Craig’s home town of Barry in South Wales and everyone had made her feel very welcome. She liked European food and she could speak English reasonably well, but …

It wasn’t her town, it wasn’t her favourite food, it wasn’t her language and they were not her people. She had had a fantastic holiday – her first trip to Europe – but she was glad to be home and she just wanted everyone to know it. She couldn’t wait to see her old mates.

They got to Daddy’s Hobby at a good time: nearly six o’clock. All the girls had arrived and were ready for action, but there were no customers yet and so the music was low. It would seem like a totally different place in two hours time. Once it got dark, the punters would be out and the volume would rise to deafening.

But between four and eight o’clock, the girls had time to talk and the volume was low enough to be able to hear them. It had been Craig’s favourite time to visit the bar before they had gone on holiday. He had come down to the bar for an early drink and a chat almost every day then and he and the girls had got to know each other pretty well.

He often translated messages, texts and letters from and to their ‘boyfriends’ for them. Not that he could speak Thai, but he translated good English into pigeon and vice versa. It was fun although sometimes the messages were rather intimate and the girls would blush and giggle and run around telling each other in fits of laughter.

It was a good ‘job’ to have: It earned him a lot of brownie points from the girls, even if it went unpaid in monetary terms. They genuinely liked to see him, although he was quite well aware that he had only gotten his foot in the door because he was Lek’s boyfriend. Many of the girls were from Lek’s village in the north and she had worked with others for years. She was like a big sister to them and many of them called her just that.

At thirty-two years of age, Lek was also the oldest woman in the bar or at least joint oldest with her two best friends: Goong and Ayr. Her cousin, Beou, was a few years older again, but no-one ever mentioned that – she was the boss anyway. Despite her ‘advancing’ years (most of the girls were in their early twenties or younger), Lek was acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman in the bar by everyone, although no-one ever mentioned the obvious fact that that would not be true for many more years to come.

However, for now, she was still the beauty queen amongst beauty queens, for they were all very good-lookers in their own right.

When the taxi pulled up outside the bar, it was as if a film star had arrived, all the girls crowded around Lek, took her handbag, led her up to the bar by the arm, fired a dozen questions at her and whooped and whooped and whooped.

Craig paid the taxi driver and carried the luggage to the bar. He had expected a bit more attention for himself than that.

Once he was at the bar, a few of the girls noticed him and flung their arms around him, kissing him repeatedly on the cheek and arms. A few of the girls took the luggage to store behind the bar and Lek and Craig sat down for the start of what they both knew would be a long and lively session.

All the women were talking at once and, although Craig wasn’t being totally ignored, he wasn’t getting served either. He was dying for an ice-cold beer. He couldn’t follow the conversation, maybe nobody could, but he could see how happy they all were, so he went behind the bar and got three beers. The first one didn’t touch the sides. He downed it in two mouthfuls, but the other two he took back to the bar and handed one to Lek.

“Oh, so sorry, telak! Nobody take care of you. So sorry.”

She said something and a few girls were detailed to ‘take care’ of Craig. Then she said loudly:

“You only buy two beers, this is not enough!” and she leaned over and rang the bell, signalling a drink for everyone at her expense.

Craig finished his beer quickly and accepted another.

Two of the girls detailed to ‘take care’ of Craig were unknown to him. They had obviously joined the crew while he and Lek had been away. They were very friendly, but when Ayr thought they were getting a bit too familiar, she sent them behind the bar to serve.

“So, sorry, Craig,” she said, “these girls new. They don’ know Lek and you together. I tell them later. Nice to see you again. You have good time in Wale’?” and she was gone without waiting for the answer.

Ayr and Goong were Lek’s oldest friends, came from the same village and had shared a room in Pattaya before Craig came on the scene. Neither of them held any ill will against Craig for taking their friend away though. They were happy that she was happy, because they were true friends.

“Oh, well,” he joked with himself, “Shame about that. Still, never mind. At least, I didn’t get into trouble on my first day back. Saved from myself by Lek’s friend. Saved from whatever-their- names were too.”

It did the trick though. He was not ignored by Lek, her friends or the strangers again. Everyone was keeping an eye on him now. He was served, kissed and complimented without long intervals in between and it suited him fine.

The girls quietened after about twenty minutes and they all sat around Lek, or as near as they could get, to listen to her favourite stories. It wasn’t long after that that the first bottle of whiskey was broken out and a few small glasses appeared. The girls preferred whiskey because it was less fattening than a bottle of beer and it was easier to finish quickly if a punter wanted to talk with one of them.

Craig sat nearby too and listened out for landmark words like: Barry, Wales and family names. Sure enough, they were all mentioned often and he was sometimes called upon to corroborate the details, although no-one actually waited for him to finish speaking. He just about had the time to nod and smile, even though he didn’t know what was being said. He trusted Lek though.

She was speaking softly so that the girls would have to listen hard:

“We set off on a typically beautiful, balmy Pattaya evening... a bit like this evening, in fact, and at about the same time of day, to catch the overnight flight to Britain. We were going to Wales, where Craig’s family lives, but we had to go to London first, of course.

“Naturally we had to be at the check-in desk two to three hours before the flight, but there was nearly a disaster! Really! We nearly couldn’t go! All because, unfortunately, Craig had forgotten that he was carrying an old souvenir pen-knife in his pocket that his father had given to him twenty years before.

“I thought they were going to arrest him. I was horrified! I thought I might have to go alone and wait for him over there and I didn’t want to have to do that now, did I? Anyway, we were lucky, they only confiscated it. He was very sad about it, especially as the airline gave us metal cutlery to eat with anyway and the knives that they gave us were bigger than the one they had taken off Craig. Weren’t they, Craig? Bigger knives?

“Craig said it was stupid to take his one-inch blade from him under such circumstances and I think that I have to agree with him, don’t you?