one might have expected, and Morris West and Peter Ustinov and Gore Vidal he is not surprised to find. He salutes with respect the presence of the old seafarer William Golding. He notes that Barbara Cartland has given her name not only to a cocktail of pink champagne but also to the Dish of the Month, a confection of fillet of sea bass with mousse of rhubarb. All this, though strange, is acceptable to Stephen. This is the Oriental, not the Trocadero. But the sight of Pett Petrie’s name jolts him. How has Pett, his contemporary, joined this international literary jetset, this self-promoting sybaritic elite? Until ten years ago, Pett was nobody. A struggling author, a minor Wimbledon short-story writer and poet who had never been further afield than a poetry reading in Rotterdam. And now he is a world-famous novelist and has given his name to an oriental cocktail of brandy, vermouth and candiola juice.
What the hell is candiola juice? Stephen feels outsmarted. He smarts.
He conjures up the sombre Trocadero, with its serious clientele, the haunt of war correspondents and international relief workers. He tells himself that he is a serious person, not a best-seller. He is the Graham Greene character in a dingy corner with a cockroach. Not for him the fleshpots and the transient glitter of hype. (He peeps, surreptitiously, to see if there is a Graham Greene cocktail, and is relieved to note that there is not. Or not yet, not yet.)
He sips his glass of free-flowing champagne, and gazes round at the motley of hotel guests. Japanese, German, Thai, American, Korean, French, Swedish. Some chatter, some wander lonely through the crowd, nibbling and grazing. Stephen does not look out of place in his white suit. His white suit is made of miracle material. It never creases or crumples. It never picks up dirt. Stephen’s face and accent do not crease and crumple. He is the English public-school product, the mad Englishman abroad. He is an asset, a decoration. He is a man for whom doors glide open. So he reassures himself, as he sits alone.
Will Miss Porntip be admitted? Has she perhaps an invitation?
A large blond Nordic bronzed film-star or mountaineer is speaking to a small gleaming Malaysian statesman or industrialist. Are they speaking of holiday-making or drug-smuggling or gun-running or Hollywood? An elderly European woman with an ebony silver-topped cane and an air of minor royalty is listening patiently to an excited girl in a flame-coloured mini-dress who may or may not be her granddaughter. A handsome middle-aged Thai in white uniform with gold braid addresses a dark-suited Japanese gentleman. A lonely drinking Dutchman, rawly clad, towers above the throng. Two little Japanese girls in immaculate sailor suits dart nimbly through the knee-level forest. The little one is chasing the larger. They are identical except in size, their hair cut in straight and solid carved fringes, their perfect features lucid and bright, their little white ankle socks flashing, their polished black pumps twinkling. They are enjoying the party more than most. They are extraordinarily beautiful. Their sailor suits remind Stephen that he is in the great port of Bangkok, on the Gulf of Siam. So far he has not seen a glimpse of river or of sea. As he watches the little sisters, a wave of emotion pours through Stephen. He knows not what it is, but it makes the hair rise on the nape of his neck. It is a tremor from the globe itself, and from its many peoples.
But now the party is disturbed by a small commotion. It is, of course, the arrival of Miss Porntip. Here she is! She is greeted with smiles and salutations. The suave manager bows deeply from his great height, and kisses her hand. Slaves cluster, proffering titbits, silver-haired gentlemen bend with deference over her small body. She makes a royal progress. She is now robed in floor-length dazzling cyclamen-shot-pink, trimmed with gold. Her hair is full of purple flowers. From her brown arm dangles a small magenta bag. She flits, laughs, twirls neatly on her slender heels, accepting greetings from the very air, accepting from a specially presented silver tray a specially elegant glass of bubbly. She is making her way towards Stephen, fluttering, indirect, the butterfly’s way, but here she is, and, with a smile and an outstretched hand, she gestures that he should not rise, and she sinks beside him, upon the rattan couch.
The slaves melt discreetly away. The swan melts. The children laugh in the undergrowth.
‘So,’ says Miss Porntip. ‘It seems here is party. This is not nice quiet rendezvous as planned. You enjoy party?’
‘I enjoy watching the party.’
‘There is often party. These not real people, these mostly passing people.’
‘Birds of passage.’
‘Yes. Is so. You have drink?’
He lifts his empty champagne glass.
‘Here,’ she says, and offers him hers. She waves her hand, and, as he takes his first sip, another materializes as if by magic at her elbow. They clink glasses, smile, and pledge one another.
‘So,’ she says. ‘And how is hotel?’
‘Dim,’ he says. ‘Dim, but serviceable.’
She laughs. The swan drips. It is losing its glassy essence.
‘We will not stay here long,’ she says. ‘We will go eat. You hungry?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
She laughs again. He smiles, more slowly. She places her little brown hand upon his knee. He notices that she has changed her rings to complement her costume. Gone are the emeralds. She is now sporting amethyst and ruby and sapphire. She is a symphony of hard reds, hard pinks and blues. She taps his knee with small light fingers.
‘Welcome,’ she says. ‘Welcome to Bangkok.’
Her lips are a glossy, varnished, violent pink. Unnatural, delightful. Her nails are painted a bluish pink.
‘Stephen,’ she says, experimentally, affectionately, a little smugly. She seems surprisingly proud of him. He wonders how, amongst all these rich travellers, he has managed to catch her fancy. He wonders whether he should reply with a murmured ‘Porntip’, but cannot quite make it. She seems to acknowledge that her name might ring oddly in his ears, and to pay this possibility no attention. She has assurance, she has dignity. She is a sophisticated woman, Miss Porntip, a woman of the world. Is she to be trusted? (He supposes he ought to ask himself, trusted for what?)
Trusted for dinner, anyway. That is agreed. She leads him out of the party, scattering little nods and thanks as she goes, a compact princess. She takes his arm, and trips beside him, propelling him firmly through high rooms furnished with antique furniture and gilt mirrors, and pushing her way through a white curtain woven of ropes of fresh white jasmine. Now they are in a perfumed garden, twinkling with Chinese lanterns of orange and deep iris blue. She leads him on, towards the river. They stand, on the parapet, overlooking the Chau Praya. They stand where Conrad stood. They gaze at the broad heaving swell, at glittering bedecked barges, at buzzing hydrotaxis, at water ferries, at dark slow moving hulks, at twinkling lights and reflections, at a whole city on the move. ‘Come, come,’ she says, and leads him further onwards, to a swaying landing stage of wood. They stand there, rising and falling to the irregular rhythm of the water. Green and purple water hyacinth float and suck in the current. The flood slaps and tugs. Miss Porntip takes Stephen’s left hand, and kisses each of his fingers, and then sucks, gently, upon the smallest of them. They both stare at the water.
Miss Porntip sighs, happily. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Now we go eat, and I tell you more about my poor childhood and my business success. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ says Stephen. He is struck into docility by this strange little woman, by this warm night. She can suck him dry if she wants. If she can. The water sucks at the wooden legs of the landing stage. A smell of burning diesel and rotting vegetation mingles erotically with the scent of jasmine and the vinous musk of Miss Porntip.
