It’s been a while since I posted a submission here – perhaps symptomatic of how my life has moved on. (I’m not the only one, am I, Stick?).
I’ve just returned – twelve hours ago – from a 2,500 mile road trip in Europe. Met some interesting people, saw some great sights, stayed some time with my friend with a problematic Filipina wife (see previous posts), failed to indulge in sexual activity (apart from the mental kind). This was probably just as well because I had a long conversation with a hotel proprietor’s daughter who I had placed at about 19 and was keen to develop her English language skills. She was, she told me, actually 14 (‘and a half’ she added). My age deduction skills are obviously not what they were. Mea culpa, and I’m glad (not to say relieved) that this came up in conversation when it did. I couldn’t help but think that in some places not far from the experience of readers here someone could have got into a whole world of trouble …
An interesting experience was in a French restaurant one evening. I was dining alone (as I’m happy to do, I enjoy people-watching). A lady (French, as it turned out) was also dining alone at a nearby table. We exchanged smiles and later had coffee together on the terrace. She was attractive if not stunning, late 30s I would guess, and we conversed in her limited English and my limited French. She was a divorcee, had a couple of kids, and we talked over several coffees for a couple of hours. We had something in common – she’d been a cop for ten years before leaving for a more regular job. Despite the language barrier, which once we’d got talking proved to be no barrier at all, we got on well. There was a connection, a frisson, and I suspect (or is it just wishful thinking?) that it wouldn’t have taken much to take it to the next level. We parted both knowing that, I think, and I will remember her. And that’s the joy of travelling, of meeting new people – you never know what might happen if you’re open and prepared to take a chance.
What prompted this submission was that during my conversation with this lady we shared the stories of our lives. Perhaps more so because we were strangers never to meet again. (That’s another joy of travelling). I told her of my disastrous marriage to a Filipina and showed her the knife scar (on my hand, nothing too intimate) and she told me of her psychological scars. I told her of my relationship with a Thai girl, my all too brief visit to Thailand, and ‘you buy Momma a house?’
And then, of course, later I got to thinking about my TGF. Here I was, trundling around France in my old diesel Jaguar (which owes me nothing and is cheap to run) with the ability to go wherever I wanted, stop anywhere interesting for lunch or which suggested a good dinner or an interesting hotel, and I couldn’t help but wonder how the TGF would have enjoyed this.
I’ve met many women before and since but I can honestly say (not that I would before thinking carefully) that she was the most beautiful woman I have ever made love to. I don’t think that she was ever a bar girl, and partly thanks to a Stick PI job I think she may have been a ‘pretty girl’ doing promotions.
Whatever she was, she was fiercely proud, strong and independent. Living in Cyprus, where we met, she was the victim of much racial misogyny. I will always remember with a smile her response to a fat slug of a Cypriot taxi driver who offered her a free taxi ride for a BJ. ‘Fxxk off’, she told him ‘I could buy you and your taxi’. And she probably could.
And it added a level to our relationship. There was no farang buying a Thai girl here.
So, to get to the point of this piece, I wonder what she’s doing now. She’ll be 35 in a couple of months but I guess she won’t look it. When we were together she was 29 but looked (to some) 19 and we received more than our fair share of disapproving looks and comments from those who didn’t know us.
Would she have enjoyed the trundling around Europe? Yes, I think she would – but she was fiercely Thai and in her mind that was the best or only place to be.
And that’s something I’ve learned from what has been the maelstrom of my life so far. Filipinas are happy to leave their homeland for a ‘better life’ (that’s a subject for another submission) but Thai women – well, they really want to stay in Thailand with all the benefits that a ‘farang kwai’ can provide.
As for my former TGF? I can only think well of her and hope that her life now is good. And that’s a good way to remember any former relationship. I hope that she feels the same way about me.
