The Gates of Ivory. Margaret Drabble

invading and claiming his space. He scooped up his belongings and redeployed them beneath his feet. As he did so, he took note that Death had been joined near the Emergency Exit by Lust.

      Lust was extremely attractive. She was also tiny, and the extra leg-room was wasted on her, but Stephen did not grudge this. If the seat must be occupied, let it be by such an apparition. She settled herself in, clearly a practised last-minute traveller, without fuss, with a comfortable little rustling and patting of pillow and blanket. She seemed to have no baggage: perhaps the attentive steward had disposed of it in some privileged secret store? Stephen observed her covertly, as Captain Parodi swooped upwards to the skies. Of her legs he had a good view, for her tight emerald skirt rode high above her knees, and her ankles were extended, neatly crossed. Her little green lizard-skin high-heeled shoes were impractical fetishes. Her feet made Stephen’s feet look enormous. Her hands were neatly folded in her lap, and she wore large rings with flashing stones. In her lap reposed an absurdly small, soft, kingfisher-blue bag with a golden clasp and a golden chain. Her breasts were high and showy under a trim white silk shirt. She wore a lavish quantity of cosmetics upon her brown and flawless skin. She twinkled and jittered with light, although she sat so still. Fire leapt from her emeralds and her diamonds. She smelt of musk. She was infinitely composed.

      Champagne was served, and Stephen and petite Lust each accepted one glass, then another. She seemed to be well known to the steward. They journeyed eastwards.

      Caviare was served, in small glass pots. Black aphrodisiac. Petite Lust from time to time examined her even white teeth in her pocket mirror to make sure that no unsightly soft damp dark sea eggs adhered. Into the back of her gold powder-case a goldsmith had hammered a black enamel orchid. She drank half a bottle of white wine with her meal, and then calmly embarked, with her cheese, on half a bottle of red. Stephen stared in admiration. How could so much liquid accommodate itself so gracefully in so small a frame? She did not flush or fumble. She remained calm, cool, brown, self-possessed.

      Over coffee, she announced to Stephen that her name was Miss Porntip, and that she lived in Bangkok and was Beauty Queen of Asia.

      During the in-flight movie they exchanged further information. As gangsters and drug-dealers on the small silent screen raced and tumbled and cheated and sweated and fell over cliffs in fast cars, Stephen Cox and Miss Porntip told one another little stories about their lives. He admitted to being a writer and an adventurer. She claimed to be a woman with many assets as well as her beauty. They spoke of Thailand, Indonesia, the Pacific Basin, the New World. Miss Porntip was derisive about Vietnam and China and Kampuchea. ‘This plane,’ she said, ‘it fly on to Ho Chi Minh Ville. Is ruined, Ho Chi Minh Ville. Was fine city. Saigon was fine city. Café Continental, Rue Catinat. Dancing. Thés dansants. Is all ruined now.’

      ‘It must have been ruined long before your time,’ murmured Stephen, politely. She could not be more than thirty, he thought, though he had no way of judging the bloom on an oriental skin. Certainly, the Vietnamese who had boarded the plane in Paris had looked far, far older than his new friend. They had belonged to another epoch.

      She wanted to know why he was interested in Indochina. He was hard pushed for an answer. ‘Is mainly the French and the Americans come there,’ she said. ‘Is not for the English. English did not fight there. No English missing soldiers to collect.’ She asked if he planned to stay in Bangkok, and if so at which hotel. He named his hotel. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Is old and not so nice,’ she said. ‘Many fine hotels in Thailand now.’

      She spoke as though she owned half of them. Perhaps she did.

      ‘Writers do not stay in nice hotels,’ he tried, tentatively, more for his own benefit than hers, and realizing as he spoke that he was talking rubbish. The Grand Hotel in Cabourg had been one of the finest hotels in the world. She treated his remark with the contempt it deserved.

      ‘Is not necessary stay in horrid places,’ she said, firmly. ‘Is not necessary see poor people and horrid places.’

      ‘What if they are one’s subject?’ he suggested.

      ‘Why choose subject? People not want to read of horrid things and poor people. People like nice hotels and jewels and nice things. And if poor people necessary, use . . .’ (she searched for a word, and, triumphant, found it) ‘use invention. Is correct, invention?’

      ‘Yes, correct. Invention. Imagination. But these things have their limitations. They cannot make something out of nothing.’

      ‘Why not? Films and stories make out of nothing. Look.’ She gestured towards the silent screen, where a bronzed and derivative hero ran through long corn beneath a lowering, circling pursuing helicopter. ‘Look, is nothing. Is no person and no-thing and no place.’

      He laughed. He was entranced by Miss Porntip. She was surely no-thing herself, she was surely a dream. Commandant Parodi flew on, five miles high over the Euphrates, towards the lopsided melon moon of Karachi.

      *

      The New Trocadero Hotel, Surawong Road, does not strike Stephen as particularly new. Surely it must be the old Trocadero, with a new neon sign? But it is new to Stephen, as indeed is the whole of this strange city, this City of Angels. He is not surprised that Miss Porntip had disapproved of his hotel. He is half inclined to disapprove of it himself, but checks himself sharply. He is not here to enjoy himself, after all.

      His room (executive style with bath) has a certain authentic greyness that makes him seem a little more authentic himself. The window looks out on to a vast grey cylindrical water cooler dripping ceaselessly on to a gravel-clad roof. Stephen reflects that it must be spreading legionnaires’ disease throughout Thailand and half wishes he had bothered to make time to visit his GP to inquire about hepatitis and malaria and meningitis. One can carry the Death Wish too far, and anyway what is the point of succumbing to illness in a foreign hotel? There is no story in that, no copy to file, no message to send home.

      He unpacks his clothes, hangs up his white suit and his blue, places his rolled socks tidily in a drawer. He examines the contents of his vast old-fashioned brand new refrigerator and reads the notices by the ill-placed mirror. They inform him that if he wishes to purchase any of the room’s fittings, the prices are as indicated. He looks around him. There is no way he could want to purchase any of these objects. They are all either old or unattractive or both. A bedside table, a bed, two chairs, a sheet, two pillows, an ashtray, a small wooden tray with a glass and a Thermos of purified water, a pair of flimsy and ill-fitting curtains, a doubtful rug. Each item is priced, even the grimy and slightly torn shower curtain in the bathroom. Door knob, 150 baht. As this is what Stephen paid for a taxi from the airport, it does not seem a bargain. A bedside light is listed, but does not exist. Should he report this to the management, lest he be charged for its removal?

      There is a new television set, still encased in thick fleshy semitransparent grey polythene. He switches it on. It responds, but there is no picture, only a white blare. He switches it off. He will play with it later. It is priced at 11,000 baht, which seems quite cheap. The only misspelling on the list is a handwritten addendum, ‘Bath Mate’ for ‘Bath Mat’. The phrase reminds him pleasurably of Miss Porntip, with whom he has a date for the evening in the Oriental Hotel. He wonders whether she will keep it. He has no way of knowing. She has drawn him a little map, showing him the pedestrian’s route from the sombre Trocadero to the gay Oriental. It is, she says, a short walk. They have an assignation in the Authors’ Lounge at seven thirty.

      He lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling. The room is basic, but it works. It is cool and air-conditioned. He has slept in worse rooms, far worse rooms than this. His own room, in Primrose Hill, currently occupied by a weary Hattie, is nearly as basic as this.

      He wonders what on earth he is doing here. Is he in search of a story or of himself, or of an answer to the riddles of history? Or is he merely trying to colour in the globe?

      He thinks of Joseph Conrad, whose own adventures in the South Seas began here in Bangkok. It was here that Conrad received his first command. Stephen Cox admires Conrad. He is drawn to his loneliness, his restlessness, his temptation to despair. He likes the possibly apocryphal tale of the young Conrad,