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  The lone dining was still a bit of a problem. I wasn't yet able to be myself. It was still easier to pretend to be a character. I found myself adopting a role dictated by my clothes. Because of the sun, I sported a straw panama-style hat, one of John's silk shirts, over a long cotton skirt to avoid mosquitoes, and canvas plimsolls for negotiating the rice fields. Sometimes I even held a parasol. The archetypal dotty Englishwoman. Helping some of the staff with their pronunciation, I had transmuted from Miss Havisham into Anna in the court of Siam.

  Pampered, fed and watered, I wanted for nothing. The real world was shut out. The Terror Museum was pushed from my mind. When some shocking film footage of American soldiers in Iraq dragging into their compound a young lad who had been throwing stones, and beating the hell out of him, whilst the man operating the camera, presumably to entertain his friends, breathed 'yes, yes' orgasmically into the microphone, appeared on my super state-of-the-art TV, I simply turned it off.

  I had been given a few introductions by one of my daughter's friends, who once did a bit of gardening for us and has since made it big in the Far East by dreaming up a deluxe guide to everything trendy in various places. An up-market Rough Guide; a brilliant, wittily accomplished idea that has provided him with an elegant lifestyle. Thus I stepped from the swirling mayhem of mid-town Chang Mai, into a cool, elegant shop selling designer furniture and ornaments of exquisite taste. This was run by one of his acquaintances who, coincidentally, turned out to be a woman whom I had known in England when she worked for a training centre for actors, of which I had been a co-founder. She too had found her feet in Thailand, after various adventures, including being in a relationship with an African headhunter. We met up with others in a thriving gourmet restaurant run by a Dutch friend of hers. It always seems to me a strange existence, to live in a foreign country but cling to one's fellow countrymen and way of life, whilst usually slagging off the homeland, as depicted by the international Telegraph and Daily Mail. This group of people in Thailand were providing much-needed employment for the locals, but admitted that they didn't really know them any better than I. It is a wonderful life, great food, perfect weather, no responsibility for the country's political or – in the case of Thailand – human-rights misdemeanours, but it makes me uneasy. I am too grim a person to be on perpetual holiday. Though of course I was changing all that, wasn't I?

  As someone who is frightened of all big four-legged things, and quite a few small ones too, and wouldn't dream of mounting a horse, I had been persuaded by one of my pals on the staff of the hotel to book for a trek on an elephant, followed by a trip on a raft. I resolved to try it – face my fears and all that. I was once recruited to lead an elephant into the ring when I worked with Bertram Mills's circus, because the said beast had started trying to step on the feet of the previous girl, whom for some reason he had taken agin (as the non-forgetting elephant is wont to do). Actually, he needed no leading, having done the act for years, and I grew rather fond of him, but certainly never contemplated riding on his back.

  The animals at the camp I visited were refugees from the collapsed logging trade and seemed to be enjoying their new life. These diligent creatures work for fifty years, cared for by one man who trains his son to take over. Then, they are retired into the wild, where they can live for another eighty years. Not a bad life really. The mahouts, as their owners are called, very obviously adore their animals. I enjoyed the sight of a very large beast lying in a shallow river, eyes blissfully closed, mouth definitely smiling, whilst a handsome young boy clambered over her, scrubbing and rinsing her languorously splayed body. During a demonstration of logging an over-eager baby elephant kept dropping his logs, and his mother thwacked him out of the way with her trunk, and tidied up after him like a fussy housewife. By the time we were ready to start the trek I had decided they were very nice animals and I wanted to get to know them better.

  So I was almost eager to mount, especially as it was made easy by getting on from a high platform. I settled into a rather wobbly seat contraption. It was very, very, high up. I nearly panicked but, once in motion, amazingly, I felt no fear. The creature moved so carefully and solidly, I soon had absolute trust in it. I took off my shoes and put my bare feet on its back and felt the power of its giant muscles. This was it; this was happiness. I laughed out loud with excitement. I patted and scratched his neck to show my appreciation of him, and he acknowledged this with a backward swing of his trunk. Going down a steep hill was a bit challenging, as was traversing a very narrow path along a sheer cliffside, but the animal was deft and placed his feet with infinite care. I wanted to ride bareback, like the mahouts, using my feet behind his ears to give directions, but was told I needed proper training for that, which I made a vow I would go back and get one day.

  I fell in love with these majestic beasts. I want one of my own. If I have to sacrifice my car to save the planet, this is the perfect mode of transport for my aching bones and he would cut a hell of a dash in Chiswick High Road. Even the waiters in Fish-works would notice me. And it would cheer people up. Elephants have ludicrous faces and from behind they are even funnier, like fat-arsed gentlemen in ill-fitting grey combinations, and they fart and poo a great deal. But they walk like models, and mine felt gentle and utterly reliable. Plus he would be company for my cat.

  After some time wading through rivers and plodding up and down rough terrain, we arrived at a hill-tribe village. The women and children were dressed in brilliant dresses and ornate jewellery. They sold their wares in a dignified take-it-or-leave-it fashion and despite their homes being primitive, with no modern amenities, the place rang with their laughter as they greeted the mahouts. They looked pretty happy to me, on my brief visit. The little boy who waded up to my raft and bartered skilfully with me to get a good price for the hat he was selling, splashed around in glee and triumph when he clinched the sale, as proud as my grandson Jack when he came top in physics. At a time when we in the materialistic West are questioning some of our values, these people, usually not Buddhist, but with strong – albeit to us, strange – spiritual beliefs, living in a hard-working community, seem to have found an enviable lifestyle; at least preferable to the polluted, increasingly westernised development in Chiang Mai. Which is all right for me to say, ensconced in a palatial mock-up of their lives, with all mod cons.

  Spaced out after all the cosseting in the spa, I was in for a rude shock in Bangkok. On arrival at the airport I was arrested. As I showed my passport at check-in, all hell broke loose. Two men in uniform were summoned and they gesticulated and shouted at me before forcing me across the concourse into a small room where even more very cross men arrived. I had no idea what I was supposed to have done, as they didn't speak English and I had only picked up Thai words for greeting, thanks, and pleasure, none of which seemed appropriate in the circumstances. I was thoroughly body-searched and then one of the men gave a solemn-sounding speech and handed me a paper to sign. I had read too many stories of people unknowingly confessing to drug offences to comply. I tried to indicate that I demanded someone who spoke English to attend. Eventually they all left, shutting me in the room alone, with someone outside peering through the glass panel of the door, presumably to check I didn't escape.

  I was there for about two hours, my mind filling with stories of foreigners languishing in ghastly Thai prisons for years on end. Finally a Thai guardian angel in a suit arrived. He explained that there were irregularities in my passport. Firstly, my tickets were in a different name to that in my passport. I pointed out that although it was in my married name of Thaw, on another page, admittedly in very small type, it said 'professionally known as Sheila Hancock', the name in which my tickets were booked. He tried to explain this to the now quite big group of uniformed men. Clearly they were not happy about a woman having a working life with a different name, and I didn't look like their concept of a prostitute. The most heinous crime however, was that I had entered the country illegally. I had not registered with immigration and had my
passport stamped accordingly. I must therefore be a drug smuggler; presumably, since I had got myself into this situation, a pretty incompetent one. I could think of no explanation for my crime. My translator pointed out that I was in serious trouble, the solution to which was either to leave the country immediately, which they would permit, as they had found no drugs on me, or go to gaol.

  Suddenly it dawned on me what had happened. In my muddle over the lost bags in Chang Mai, I had somehow wandered out of the airport without going through the usual passport checks. I had gone down a deserted back route to find my bag, by which time no one was around and in the absence of anyone to tell me otherwise I had just gone through a back door out of the airport. The translator took a deep breath and tried to explain this to my fierce guards, perhaps suggesting that I was obviously a scatty old Englishwoman, unlikely to be a threat to the moral fabric of Thailand. After a heated discussion, he informed me I was very lucky that they were trying to improve their image – you could have fooled me – and if it had been Cambodia or Vietnam I would definitely be incarcerated. I had to have photos taken and fill in a form with his help, and was instructed to report to them when I left the following week. I now had a criminal record in Bangkok.

  If I thought the air in Chiang Mai was bad, that was before I took my first filthy breaths of freedom outside Bangkok airport. The police and many civilians were wearing smog masks. I sank, choking, into a grubby taxi. The driver eyed me in his mirror. 'Hello beautiful. How old are you? Seventeen?'

  When someone thinks it a compliment to make that joke it confirms that you are looking very old indeed. His chatting-up was marred by calling me sir and picking his nose throughout. Of course he tried to persuade me he knew a much better hotel than the one I was going to. I had had enough. I got incredibly grand, even at one point saying, 'Now, look here, my man,' until he grumpily dumped me at the hotel. My first grouchy Thai, doing the usual city things. I knew where I was with him.

  So far I was not enamoured of Bangkok, and the posh but soulless hotel didn't improve matters. The clientele were busy having business meetings all over the foyer and those that were not were very unattractive. As I waited for reception to get round to me after dealing with their preferred male clients, I saw one gross European man sprawled on a sofa, his eyes closed, being fed cake by a very young Thai girl. He didn't speak a word to her, and she admired her new trainers as she tended him like a robot. Obviously business was not the only occupation of the hotel guests. That night in the restaurant, I shrivelled with embarrassment for a ludicrous American, sporting a walrus moustache, white hair in a pigtail, and a highly coloured silk shirt that would have looked beautiful on a lithe young Thai lad, but was obscene stretched over his fat belly. He was dining with three delicately pretty Thai women, whom he was leaping about photographing along with the food, with his big expensive camera. They tittered and smiled to order, but when he turned his back to change lenses, the looks between them showed their distaste.

  The Thai sex trade started in earnest during the Vietnam War, when American troops used the country as a break from their nightmare. Now men flock over from everywhere, to enjoy the favours of these beguiling women – and, tragically, children – seeking supposed oriental subservience after tiring of us fierce feminists. I am told that, after marriage, these yielding damsels, by tradition, expect to control the household and the purse strings. I profoundly hope that when these men get their trophy wives back to Essex, they discover they have wed little viragos. Most of the women here that are for sale do not end up with a very good deal. But I wasn't going to dwell on that. I could avoid the red-light district, and would ignore what was going on in the hotel.

  I arranged to be taken on a tour in a car. My driver and guide was a charming man called Anan. We paid the obligatory visit to the royal palace of their adored king. I refused to contemplate what would happen if he fell foul of one of the many coups and murders that bedevil Thai history. When I seemed underwhelmed by the garish delights of the Grand Palace and the numerous temples, he took me to the new Siam Paragon, without doubt the most dazzling shopping mall I have ever visited – all designer labels, expensive cosmetics, gourmet food hall, numerous restaurants. I asked Anan to have a Japanese meal there with me. At first he was reluctant, but eventually he relaxed. Over the sushi he told me that he has twin boys who have attended all-day nursery since four months old, so that both he and his wife can work to make ends meet. He has high blood pressure, and is surely not in the ideal job, coping with tetchy tourists and nightmare traffic jams. I felt guilty that I had breezily commented that a £300 designer handbag was cheap compared to England. He had just smiled and nodded politely. It is a wonder he didn't hit me, knowing what that sum would have meant to him.

  As we drove around, I was disappointed to see that, apart from the temples, the city is beginning to look like anywhere else, all modern hotels and office blocks built in the nebulous Western style. Bangkok is obviously attracting a lot of foreign investment and its buildings and transport are being upgraded. The prime minister, who was then the billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra (until recently he was in exile in the UK and is now facing corruption charges back in Thailand), was on a mission to transform the country. I had got there too late. I would have preferred it when it was the Venice of the East, before the canals had been filled in and turned into ugly roads.

  'Let's take tea in the old Oriental Hotel and pretend it's the old days,' I suggested to Anan.

  He looked embarrassed, 'I'm not allowed in.'

  Me, even more embarrassed than him: 'Nonsense. Take off your cap and badge and take my arm. They will think you are my toy boy and in Bangkok they won't turn a hair.'

  I don't think his grasp of English was good enough to quite understand me but, when I explained I didn't want to go in alone, he nervously did as I suggested. Unusually, I was really glad to be recognised by the manager because it meant that for once in his life Anan was treated with courtesy.

  This, at last, was the old Bangkok. Even here, I would have preferred it to be more decayed, as it was when Hemingway, Conrad, Noël Coward, the young Gore Vidal et al., wrote and caroused in its faded grandeur. After the war, a group of local people rescued the hotel from dereliction. One was Jim Thompson, an ex-pat American, who fell in love with the country and set up a cottage industry for producing the exquisite Thai silk. He became quite famous. There is even a rather tatty Thai restaurant in Tooting named after him. He incorporated several of the original Thai wooden houses to create a superb residence by one of the canals, on the opposite side of which were the houses of many of the people who wove his silks. He rejected air-conditioning and modern cooking stoves, entertaining royally in an elegant version of real Thai customs, although, strangely, he never learnt the language. His house, which I visited, is crammed with antiques and vivid paintings, which are very decorative, but make me long for Turner. I loved the feel of his house and garden though. It is a happy place and I wished I could have visited during his lifetime when it seemed to be perpetual open house. He went for a walk one day, whilst staying in a friend's house in the Cameroons, and vanished off the face of the earth. There are all sorts of theories about what happened but, judging by a few clues and photos, I suspect he was a bit of a gay kookaburra, and that could have had something to do with it, in those unenlightened days.

  Anyway, he would hate it now. Noisy motor boats roar past his house; everything that he relished and admired about life there has virtually disappeared. At least in the big towns. When I return to get to know the elephants, I will explore the parts of Thailand that have not been overtaken by so-called progress. Anan has promised to take me, because he said our trips have been like a holiday to him. He certainly made my stay much more enjoyable.

  On my last night I had a pedicure and the girl was quite nasty; it was a relief. All the sweetness and light was beginning to pall. It is too good to be true. It makes me suspicious because, I suppose, I am by nature cynical and churlish, howeve
r much I try not to be. The over-the-top luxury, and the relentless charm, which in the wily city felt more like servility, makes me feel guilty. I know there is dire poverty in Thailand. Anan is struggling to exist. I know there is corruption and unrest. I tried my damnedest to put it out of my mind and go with the luxurious flow, but it is against my nature to be so incurious.

  Neither look forward where there is doubt, nor

  backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask

  yourself not if there is anything out in the world that

  you want and had better grab quickly before nightfall,

  but whether there is anything inside you that you have

  not yet unpacked.

  From Resident Alien: Quentin Crisp Explains it All

  by Tim Fountain

  8

  Bexleyheath · Berkshire · Dorset

  MY SISTER IS TOTALLY absorbed in the now, and in Thailand I had tried to follow her example. But I find as I grow older, I am more interested in the past. My own and the world's. Maybe because my future is limited. I believe that at the outset of Alzheimer's you forget recent events but remember clearly things and people from long ago. Seems sensible. To mull over what's happened. Try to understand it. Get it in perspective. Maybe even relive it, bring back people from your childhood, so that your daughter becomes your mother. The recent past is difficult to untangle. It is only in retrospect when the blood has cooled, the heart stopped speeding, that you can calmly consider what happened. Just as history is reinterpreted when looked at from a distance, and you can see what was important. Or view it from a different angle. When I was young, we only learnt about kings and queens, now there is a whole working-class and feminist perspective to examine. I suspect that my childhood affected me for the rest of my life, and my childhood took place during a war, the same war that was experienced in Budapest. Perhaps that is why I can't let these events go; it is a symptom of old age. I needed to look at them more closely; try to understand the disquiet triggered by the Terror Museum that would not go away.