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?
“Anyway, the ten-and-a-half hour flight to Bahrain was very comfortable. The food was not to my liking because I am a Buddhist that does not eat beef or dairy products and the only two other choices were Indian curry or vegetable pie. I didn’t mind though. It all looked very nice and I swapped my main course for Craig’s ice cream.
“Bahrain was a shock from Suvarnabhumi airport. Oh, my God! It was OK, really, but we didn’t have any of their money, Dinar, I think, so we just had to sit there and watch people for the two hours until the connecting flight to Gatwick. That is in the UK. The time passed slowly and I was a little cold because it was 20°c there, much colder then Bangkok. Virtually freezing!
Did I tell you that a man died on the flight? I nearly forgot. Shock or travel-sickness, I think. When they opened the doors to take him off mosquitoes as big as birds flew in! Oh my Buddha! I was sure we’d get malaria…
“Anyway, the second leg flight was also OK; not as good as the first, but at least I could eat the scrambled egg and pork sausage. I had Craig’s too, because he took my feta salad. Feta is cheese by the way. Greek cheese, isn’t it, Craig? Craig? He’s not listening again... Anyway, they eat a lot of cheese in Europe. The coffee was much stronger than I am used to too, but it was lovely. All in all, I liked Etihad Airways and would fly with them again, wouldn’t we, telak?
“It took five hours to get to Gatwick and if Bahrain was a shock, Gatwick’s 5°c was as good as icy to me. As soon as I got off the plane, I was looking for the Ladies! It was that cold, honest. If you haven’t been abroad, darlings, you have no idea what cold is. We are so lucky here in good old Thailand. Anyway, fortunately we only had twenty-five minutes to wait for the bus to Cardiff via Victoria Coach Station – that’s in London again, of course.
“The tour coach was good and the driver was friendly, but the weather turned so bad as we crossed the Severn Bridge, into Wales, that is, over the Bristol Channel, isn’t it dear? that we were late arriving in Cardiff. We got there just in time for the eleven o’clock traffic jam. Just as bad as Bangkok, but you’re in the dark, which makes it a lot worse!
“It was hor-ren-dous!
“So, then our friend Nick, you know Nick, he comes in here sometimes took us in his car through Dinas Powys and Penarth before coming into Barry through Cadoxton.
“Craig suggested getting out at the King William IV – called The Billy – that’s a pub, so that we could have a drink. It was typical of him; well, you know my Craig, but it was bitterly cold, and it was close. We had been travelling for thirty-three hours and now we were ten minutes from my Welsh Mum’s house.
“Ooh, I’m parched, well, when we got to Mum’s, which was a day and a half after we started out from here… No, more about that later.
“I met so many handsome men, Oh my gosh! Our friends Colin, Ray, Billy, Digger, Danny, Sam, Paul and Selby, the father of two famous Welsh boxers, Andrew and Lee (he gave me one of Andrew’s jackets – I’ll show it to you one day) - they were in O’Brien’s and Mike, or Henry as his friends call him, in the Buccaneer and so many others. Those places are in the centre of the town of Barry, of course, Holton Road, near the King’s Square. When they come over to visit us, we could introduce you, if you like....”
Lek had them spellbound. It was exactly what it must have been like to watch Hans Christian Andersen telling fairy stories to kids in Denmark, although Lek’s stories were true even if a little dramatised. They just stared at her, sometimes looking at Craig as if to say ‘What with him?’, but actually saying “Ooh, really?” and “Ahhh, really? None of them had been to Europe before, although it was the dream that every single one of them had.
In fact, they would happily go to live anywhere abroad so long as the job was better and there was more money, which everybody believed that it was ‘abroad’ – meaning Europe, Australia and the USA. Not many of them had heard of Canada or New Zealand. Second choice was northern Africa, but most of the girls had heard rumours of sex slaves there and none of them fancied that.
Beou arrived on her motorbike and the commotion started all over again. Some girls jumped up to pretend they were working and others got out of the way to allow the boss easier access to her favourite cousin. She put one arm around Lek and, as she leaned in to exchange kisses, took Craig’s hand with the other.
“Hello, both! How the devil are you? Did you have a good time? Sorry that I couldn’t be here to greet you when you arrived, but someone was late coming to see me. (They’ll never do it again though). So, he didn’t sell you into slavery then? Or did you do a bit of part-time sex-slaving? Did she tell you, Craig? She was rather worried that you would sell her as a sex-slave to a bunch of old men in a nursing home! She might not have minded if it was to a football team. Or what do you play over there in Wales? Ah, rugby, is it? Yes, rugby.”
Lek was blushing deeply and she thought she would die if any of the girls knew what was actually being said about her, but it was a bit too fast for most them.
“No, she didn’t say anything. What’s this all about, Beou? And how are you anyway?”
“Oh, I’m fine. A few of the old women back home warned Lek to be careful that you didn’t sell her into the sex industry. A lot of people are worried about it, but I told her that the old biddies in the village were just jealous.”
Lek could still barely speak so she covered her face below her eyes with a hand to hide her blushes.
“Oh, Beou! How could you? I didn’t really believe them, but you hear such terrible things, don’t you? And I never said anything about an old men’s home or a football team! And I didn’t even know what rugby was until a few months ago.” Then in English: “Don’t believe her, Craig..... Well, not all of it anyway.”
“I don’t know what you are all talking about. Don’t believe all of what? What did Beou say?” asked Craig
“Oh, don’t worry, I tell you later. It is not important now. Ladies in the village tell me to take care nobody sell me into sex slavery, that’s all. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, is that all,” he replied, still not completely understanding. One thing he had learned though was that if Lek said ‘later’, it usually meant either ‘no’ or ‘never’, so he just let it drop. He trusted her and her judgement and, besides that, they were back on her turf now where she knew far more than he ever would.
Beou