Culture shock (part 5, final)

How can you get your fill on this stuff?

In the course of the night the ranks of the "kids" swelled, when we were joined by another cousin of Robert's, aged 20 or so, who was to start working for Pim at her stand within weeks, replacing Robert himself who was still being lippy with his aunt. 

Pim's boyfriend, James, also turned up on his motorcycle, though paying for him wasn't my problem. I took the kids home in a taxi about 10.30pm, as I was sick of the place. Pim contributed to their taxi fare, which was kind, as the bill including food came to almost 2,000 baht. 

On the way home, Robert started chatting to the taxi driver, a friendly guy well into his 60s. Robert referred to me as his Dad throughout, and talked to the driver about my habits, likes and dislikes. He was a touchingly attentive surrogate son, I thought.

His mother had started a new family in the provinces, he told me once, and his real father had vanished from the scene years ago. This was a lad in need of a role model and all that, perhaps - but really, just a growing teen looking for a bit of fun. At the first distraction, he would be off.

The next day the mood soured when a woman who runs a streetside eatery down the way from Pim's stand and who I have known for more than 15 years, warned me off the family.

"We are worried about you and don't think you should get too friendly," my friend, who I shall call Mai, said. 

Mai runs a great eatery nestled in a small garden and employing two or three young workers from Laos. I discovered her shop years ago, and drop in every day before work. Before leaving home I phone ahead with a order: two boxes of food which I pick up on the way to the office. I know her family, and when we go away on trips we buy presents for each other. Civilised behaviour, and no one trying to gain an advantage over the other.

"We have never wanted anything from you. but these folk have taken your money for clothes, a guitar, a restaurant meal..." Mai said. "What's next?"

Actually, Robert had asked for a new smartphone, but I had told him he would have to help me save if he wanted that item.

Mai had been talking to another trader who runs an Esan-style eatery next to her own shop, who has also known me for years. Her husband works for the same company as me, and I have known her son and daughter, both kids when I met them and now grown up, for as long as I have been here.

Both traders were annoyed by the presence of the Laos family, as their stand drew customers away from their own eateries -  but their unease went further than that.

"If one day they decide to move shop again and they forget about you, what will you be left with?" Mai asked.

I decided to heed my trader friends' advice, especially when I heard that Pim and her young charges had been muttering among themselves about how the outing to the food barn in Bang Kapi was "too expensive" and not worth the effort.  They were grumbling together as they set up shop the morning after our trip and Mai overheard them.

In the coming weeks, Robert was to grow distant as he spent time with his elder cousin, the one who turned up at the food barn that night and eventually joined Pim at her stand.

Shortly after he started, Pim was to banish Robert back to her brother's shop in Jet Sip Rai, and I didn't see him again for more than a month. 

He did not ask his aunt how I was, even though he saw her every night after work. Nor did he call or send messages. I wrote letters which I asked Pim to pass on, but she seldom brought back word. 

I decided I had had enough. When Robert finally returned he apologised for the lack of contact and declared he had mended his ways with his aunt and was now back for good. However, I suspect he had really come back to persuade me to buy him a smartphone - our last bit of unfinished business before he had disappeared. 

"Do you still want to buy Robert that phone?" Pim asked me one night around that time, and I knew after that I should expect a visit from Robert, and so it was. Within a day or two, he was back.

I listened to him patiently but did not commit. I had no intention of parting with any more money, but said nothing. In fact, we weren't to speak again.

I passed him at the shop another few times before his aunt realised I had lost interest in supporting them. She sent him back to the brother's shop, as I suspected she would, and some weeks later closed her stall permanently and moved. 

I seldom spoke to any of her crowd after I saw Robert that day, and for weeks biked past their stand with my nose in the air as if I didn't know them. We have not seen each other since.