An Exciting Future. Owen Jones

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      “We’re in Thailand,” he replied a little too testily.

      Craig was fifty years old and had never asked a woman to marry him so far, but he thought he might like to ask this one. She was a handful, as they say, that was to be sure, but there was also something about her that he found very special.

      He didn’t like her taking those pills though, but he knew how badly affected by travel-sickness she could get. She’d had to throw up in her new crocodile skin handbag once – her pride and expensive joy – because they had gone on a short bus ride and she had forgotten to transfer all her paraphernalia into the new bag. It was either be sick in her new bag or on the floor of the bus and she would rather die than do that and lose face.

      Later, she would have to be assisted like a drunk through the airport, baggage control and immigration and suffer the stern stares from the Thai officials who would assume that she had drunk too much cheap alcohol on the plane.

      He was glad that she had chosen to wear long, baggy trousers.

      The plan of the day was Lek’s usual one whenever anything unusual or exciting happened to her, namely to get down to ‘Daddy’s Hobby’ in Pattaya and tell her friends all about it. In fact, it didn’t have to be anything unusual at all, it was just the place where Lek felt most at home in the world. ‘Daddy’s Hobby’ was the name of the bar that Lek’s cousin owned and where he had met her. Craig didn’t mind going there one little bit. The two dozen bar girls always made a big fuss of him and Lek even encouraged them to do it.

      Within a couple of hours, he’d have girls hanging off his shoulders, sitting on his lap and plying him with drinks while Lek recounted the details of her recent adventure in the UK. She should have come round a bit by then too.

      Just in time to share a couple of bottles of whiskey with her ex-colleagues.

      Still, it would be very pleasant and the apartment that he had booked before they had left was not far from the bar.

      He was wondering whether that would be a good time to propose – in front of her friends, when she least expected it and when she would get the maximum amount of attention and admiration. It would certainly give her face a boost, not that it was flagging in Pattaya. All her friends thought she was a star - one in a million.

      Craig thought so too.

      However, first things first, he thought; people were starting to disembark. Craig thought it best to wait for most people to get off before he tried to coax and manhandle Lek down the aisle, so they just sat there and he tried to get her to get a grip on herself.

      Without much success.

      The cabin staff were helpful – they understood about the tablets – and Lek and Craig eventually made it to immigration, which was pretty straightforward, although Lek did attract a few of the expected stern looks from the Thai officials and Craig got more than a couple of knowing nods from them too. He just smiled back weakly in reply.

      They made it to the carousel, where Lek fell into a chair and Craig picked up the luggage, which he loaded onto a trolley. He considered putting Lek on it too, but that would have been just too embarrassing, so he settled for letting her push it, so that she had something to lean against. No problems at baggage control and then out into the heat.

      He had more or less forgotten the overpowering heat and the everyday bustle outside a Thai airport. Taxi drivers and their touts all shouting at once for your custom. This was one of the occasions where having a Thai girlfriend helped a lot. She shooed them all away and they stood in the queue for a proper meter taxi to take them to Pattaya, which was only about an hour away.

      They were supposed to go to the British Embassy to have Lek’s six-month visa cancelled as it was still valid for three months and allowed multiple entries into the UK, but the Embassy would be closed now and Lek was in no fit state anyway. They would have to do something about it another day.

      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.

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