Unwilling suitor, reluctant bride (3, final)

 

‘Imagine how much you could make if you owned a chain of such stalls!’

Lort fancies himself as a man of influence, a wily character who has the world’s measure and who knows how to look after himself, thanks very much.

In the chicken shed, he had asked me: 'When you look at me, do you see a smart guy?'

I gave Ball some money to buy ya dong from carer R's stand. He walked out to buy it and returned home, ya dong in hand, five minutes later.

Lord, Ball and I drank in one corner. The others formed their own circle next to us, but apart.

The other group comprised Ball's younger brother Mr B, the women in the family, and the boyfriend of their elder sister.

They talked among themselves, as they did not seem interested in our group. Nor did our circle talk to theirs, which I found puzzling.

'Why do Mr B and the other lad not join us?' I asked Ball.

'They don't drink,' he said matter-of-factly.

An invisible wall appeared to have gone up in the living room, keeping both groups apart. All because of alcohol?

I did not give Lort an immediate answer on his proposal that I become a ya dong liquor baron.

However, he does not give up easily.

I left his place about 6pm, as I had to go to work. The next day, however, he tried to interest me in the taxi business as well.

I was chatting to carer R at his ya dong stand when Lort turned up on his motorbike.

'Hop on. I'm going on an errand.'

We travelled to nearby Klong Toey.

Lort turned off the main road, drove alongside a park and into a large vacant area under the motorway, where he keeps his taxi.

Taxi drivers rent parking space here from the local public transport authority, which owns the land.

'That's my car. Like it? You could have one just like it,' he said.

'You don't have to drive yourself, just as you don't have to sell ya dong. Someone else does the work for you, while you sit at home making money.'

We stopped for a drink of ya dong, made by a woman in her 30s, who sold the home-made brew surreptitiously from a large carry bag.

The woman, who has two children, comes from the Northeast.

'I clean the taxis, but to supplement my income, I also sell ya dong to the drivers.

'In these times, we all need extra money,' she said.

'You look so young,' she told me approvingly.

Such was the potency of her red, cough-mixture like concoction that I soon forgot Lort's sales spiel about taxis: how much they cost, how much I stood to make. Dull, dull.

'I am not interested in buying into a ya dong stall,' I told him as we made our way home.

Lort took the bad news in his stride.

'Never mind,' he said.

I had chosen a good time to break it to him. Lort was preoccupied trying to negotiate a flooded narrow sidestreet on his motorbike, with my dead weight propped on the back.

I'd make a hopeless businessman. Money and I just don't mix.

Lort is the one with the financial brains. Let him do it, or raise the money from someone else more able. I'm better at emotional stuff.

I can invest time in getting to know Mr Ball, his troubled young son badly in need of a friend...but I'll keep my money to myself.