closing time
extract from my novel 'after the fire'
Five in the morning and the night had been hard in Walking Street. The bar girls’ faces were pale and tired in the pools of light as they picked their supper off the food vans. Wasted and sweaty from the heat and the demands of the night, still they kept coming, circling the corners and the doorways, prowling in and out of the bars, always with a watchful eye for the next wealthy ex-pat. These guys weren’t too hard to spot in Thailand: grey hair, sun-sodden Western faces, floral shirts tight over big bellies, and wallets that opened wide for the right smile.
The Johnny l’Americain bar doors were flung open onto the street, and there, bang centre, shaven-headed, wearing his favourite old Triple Five Soul vest and cargo shorts, with jacked-up muscles and beaten-up tribal tattoos, Mick Bluff cranked up the volume for the last set of his slot. Old school techno, late in the night now and a bit of a rarity round here, but it was what he loved, and it always got this crowd back up on its feet. He saw Rahul, the old Indian owner, looking at him. In a minute he’d tell him to turn it down, always fearful of having to increase his bung to the local police, but in the meantime, Mick could nudge it up another notch and keep on dancing in the booth.
Mick knew this was a good time. He was coupled up, so far as he ever got, and mostly happy. Mainly because he’d been smart enough to stay out the marriage trap. A mate of his had made the mistake of getting married last year. Six months in they found him in a pile at the bottom of his tower block. Pati, his inconsolable wife, said he had jumped from their condo balcony. She had told the stone-faced detectives how she had begged him to stop, but he’d been too determined. She showed how she had reached out for him while he was sitting there, yet he had pushed her away, and slipped off the balcony in front of her. When they’d calmed her down, she talked for hours: how poor Carlton had been so sad, how he kept on missing England and what he’d given up there to come here to Pattaya, and how, try as she might, she couldn’t cheer him up.
Mick knew with certainty that Carlton didn’t have a suicidal idea in his head. In fact, exactly the opposite – he was loving life. An overweight tax inspector out of Scarborough, Carlton had finally had enough of being bossed around by the government. He’d sold his house and flown business class out to Bangkok while he was young enough to have fun. He’d certainly enjoyed it, though not in the way he expected. He’d got his stomach stapled, lost a lot of weight, tried to party – which was how he’d met Mick – but his heart wasn’t in it. He wanted something quieter, and that’s where Pati came in. Carlton, silly sod, too vulnerable after ten years on his own, had fallen head over heels.
Mick guessed, and the stone-faced detectives would almost certainly know, that Pati’s three brothers paid the couple a visit that night. Maybe for drinks on the balcony, more probably getting straight to the point, but either way Carlton wouldn’t have seen it coming. The brothers would have left in a hurry after Carlton hit the pavement, leaving Pati time both to wash up the glasses, and get worked up and emotional for the police.
Except for Mick, no-one cared. Soon enough Pati would sell the condo, reassign his pension, and split the money between herself and her brothers. So long as they looked after the police, they wouldn’t be too interested. Carlton was far underwater now, the waters breaking overhead, another ex-pat drowned in a foreign country where, whatever the size of his money clip, he’d never quite belong.
Mick hadn’t married Amita, but he did kind of love her, despite everything. He’d tried not to, because that was how you went wrong. But you couldn’t not like a woman who turned up regularly and slept with you every night, whether or not you wanted sex (and lately he wasn’t so bothered, he just liked the company), who did your laundry, who cooked, cleaned, who made you laugh, dressed up good when you went out, who had a banter with your mates without stepping over any lines. He’d found her sitting in a bar six years back, and he was still paying her 40,000 Baht a month to keep her on board, so in theory he could pull the plug any time, but she’d outsmarted him in one way: Florence, their daughter, was going to be five soon, and no doubt about it, leaving her was going to be hard.
Shift over, back up in his rented condo on the 15th floor, Mick looked in on Amita. She was sleeping in bed with Florence in her arms. Frowning at a dream, Florence wriggled a little, and Amita gathered her up in her sleep without waking. Even at forty Amita was a good-looking woman, and the two of them made a real sweet picture.
Not wanting to get caught up in all that he opened a beer, grabbed his robe and went out on the balcony to think. This was the morning it was supposed to happen, and he had to be sure. He had a woman who would stick around, his own little daughter, a decent place to live, and all the nightlife he could handle – what was there not to like?
The opal sea far below threw back a thousand trembling fragments of the early morning light, and for a long moment he wavered. This place, this life, it was beautiful. Maybe he could move up country with Amita and Florence, get away from the city, get away from her family. Maybe even buy some land and hire the guys to work it.
Then a cool breeze from offshore hit him. He pulled his robe around him and got real. This wasn’t his country, never would be – and Florence and Amita? On hire. He could kid himself that Amita genuinely liked him – and maybe she did – but she’d always been clear: without her monthly payment, she wouldn’t stick around too long. Mick was 58, so 60, 65 were round the corner, and even with the best sniff in the country, how long would he have the pace to keep on fronting up the DJ booth? More to the point, with all the sniff he’d been taking lately how long could he keep out the hospital? His days on the Saudi oil fields had left him with a bankroll, but they’d also given him injuries which meant big medical bills down the line. It’s a cliché, but it’s no less true for all that: you get to a certain age, you can’t help realising how much you love the NHS.
So, even without this latest thing, the writing was on the wall, and he knew it. It had been a banging party, but the sun was rising, the street cleaners were sweeping round the casualties, and the kids were coming up harder and faster than ever. He’d had a great run, held on longer than anyone else he knew, but there was no fooling himself any more: he’d had his lot. Time to get packed up, and get off home, Mickey boy.
The breeze was cool, comforting, and he crashed out on the lounger. When he woke up the condo was empty: Amita had taken Florence to nursery. He had a couple of hours before she was back, as she’d always go to the gym with her friends after that. He wondered what she’d be saying about him and decided he didn’t want to know.
He wandered through the condo, had a bite at the breakfast she’d laid out for him – he had to smile, she would keep trying to feed him this healthy crap – and went into their bedroom. He saw Florence had left her teddy behind, dropped down the side of the bed. She wouldn’t be happy she’d done that. He’d bought her a teddy because in his view you couldn’t be a kid without one, and at the moment she took it everywhere she went. He picked it out and put it on her little bed where she’d see it as soon as she ran in. He remembered how she looked in her red pyjamas. How her thick black hair got so tangled. How she stretched her arms out for a cuddle when she was sleepy. How he’d scoop her up and feel her go to sleep on his chest. How he put her to bed and tucked her in with her Masha and the Bear cover. How the skin on her face looked so perfectly smooth, fresh, untouched, like it was lit from the inside with her love for him.
So anyway, yeah, this latest thing. Had to be done. He found a pen and a Post It pad and wrote her a note:
Your a good lass Flo, be good and do well at school and look after your mam. Your daddy loves u and will think about u lots on his travels.
He pulled out his bag. Leather, brass and ornamental bronze trim, handmade by a guy up the coast. Mick enjoyed the good stuff, and in Thailand he could afford it. It had never been like that in England for him, but that was no longer an issue. This latest thing, the Facebook thread about the school reunion, was the final straw. It had delivered a call from an old, persistent spirit. It had sent him spinning into a sea of memory, and his own waters were closing overhead fast. But, unlike Carlton, he wasn’t sinking. He was going home, and these were the waves that would save him.
He grinned as he considered what he had in mind. Nice bit of fun. Hit the clubs in Istanbul, then on for a few weeks with mates in Düsseldorf, see if that stacked up as well as they reckoned. Then a flight to Stansted, pick up a nice car, hit the A1, A46 all the way back home. See his mam for the first time in a good while. Bit of Grimsby fish and chips, look round the old town and a night out or two, then the main event: the school reunion. Yeah, it would be interesting to see Sean, but that was definitely secondary to seeing Corinne. Sean had had his chance and blown it way back, so it was over to him now. It was probably not going to be that straightforward – most things weren’t, Mick had found – but this was last-chance territory so they were all going to have to be real about it.
Mickey Bluff and Corinne Ayr, eh? After all these years, finally make or break.
He put on his headphones, turned up the sounds, started to pack.
What’s a forty-year gap between you and the woman you never forgot?
