THE CLUB TIE

THE CLUB TIE

(MCC is the Middlesex Cricket Club the exclusive club of Lord’s cricket ground.)

It was in September 1989 I met Gilbey at the Plaza Hotel in Bangkok. He rang me to say he was the new rep for Tudor Gin in the Far East, and would I like a drink?

The Plaza Hotel was large and flashy. Flaky gold paint was everywhere. The red plush banquettes sagged wearily from years of hard use. Dusty chandeliers drooped overhead, lending a faint hint of a glittering past. The girls who lingered in the Director's Bar were the type who liked you on sight, if you were loaded. They looked pretty under the dim light. They never improved on closer acquaintance.

As I waited in a booth, a Gin Fizz in my hand, I saw this figure pause at the bar, looking about for somebody.A thin man about six feet tall wearing a suit which had been Savile Row, but was now Skid Row, with missing buttons and frayed cuffs. He wore a Panama hat with a greasy headband. It sat on the back of his head exposing his large balding forehead. The striking note of his outfit was that he wore a grubby stiff collar and tie. The tie was an MCC tie although the strong colours had faded and it was spotted with various stains of different hues.

I looked over in an enquiring way and he moved down the room towards me swaying and weaving on his long legs. He reminded me of a baby giraffe taking its first steps. In his hand he carried a paper shopping bag.

"Lovely to meet you" he said, and he held out his hand, tilting just a little. It felt moist and hot and I made an effort not to wipe my fingers on my trousers after our handshake.

"Thought I'd search you out, cos I'm new to Bangkok and people say you know everyone here."

It was, at least, a frank introduction and a true one. I had lived there for twenty years working with several different regimes and making a quiet profit from each one of them. I knew quite a bit about the locals.

He saw my cocktail and he clicked his fingers at a passing waiter.

"Same again for the Maestro and a large one for me"

I spoke for the first time: "Is this a good pitch for your sales?

He grinned. "Lord, No! They sent me here to wither on the vine, m’boy. Our Gin is foul... But some of the locals sup it up like kittens, so no need to work."

This was the first time I had been called "m’boy " since I was a teenager.

There was a glitter in his eye. He was horrible but watchable at the same time, a tropical Svengali. Lowering his voice to an intimate level he put his mouth close to my ear. I smelt that Gin on his breath.

"They say the girls here will do anything for a US dollar."

"I wouldn't know" I said, although I knew Craisie Maisie, standing at the bar, specialised in massage and extras.

The waiter brought our drinks, and we chatted for a while before he pulled from his paper bag, a huge 2 litre bottle of his Tudor Gin.

"Put it away for God's sake, you'll get me barred from here"

"Just try it" he urged "after a while you get used to it."

He was an expert at siphoning gin from hidden bottle to glass and we both had a large one. I mixed mine with the remains of my original drink and the effect seemed ok. He had knocked off the original drink and had nothing to drown the taste, but he downed it in two gulps.

"I like this place" he said "Got a touch of class."

He took in the bar girls and the fading gilt furnishings with an expansive look like a rajah surveying his palace.

"What's it cost to stay here?"

"About four dollars an hour" I said, "but no one stays more than two hours, if you get my meaning."

He chortled and swigged his glass, eyeing the girls intently.

"Maybe I can get a room and do a deal with the manager to stay on."

He raised himself with a slow practised effort as if the task was a difficult one.

"Hold my bottle, would you?"

He moved slowly towards the bar as if he was treading through thick jungle grass.

"I want a suite of rooms-your very best and be quick about it"

The fat barman looked impassively at him and said nothing. He pointed at the office near the front of the hotel. Gilbey disappeared in that direction leaving me with a huge bottle of gin hidden under my table. I was trapped and if I wanted to leave there was no explanation for the bottle. I sat, curious to see what happened next.

Ten long minutes passed without a sign of him. I began to think he had left me with the baby, or rather, the gin bottle, and sloped away. But then I heard sounds coming from the hall; raised voices and excitable cheers, not threats and screams.

Marching through the hall was Gilbey arm in arm with the surly local manager. In all my time he’d never said a civil word to me.

The man was singing some gross song about The Foggy Foggy Dew and Gilbey was harmonising in a gargling sort of voice.

"Hoo Hoo!" He shouted "You'll never guess! William here is a member."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I just told you" he tried to show some patience. "He's a member of MCC"

"Yes" said the manager" I've been a member for years. Come up to my apartment and we'll celebrate."

I was mystified but keen to share in the secret, so I followed them up, as did Craisie Maisie and a couple of the bar girls. The 2 litre bottle came up with me. Long into the night and the early dawn, we partied with the girls. The gin soon disappeared, and we moved on to Arak and ate curry from a communal dish.

A dozen or so cocktails later, I looked at the badge hung up on the wall of William's room.

It read “MCC ...Motor Cycle Club Bangkok.”

I looked at Gilbey, he smiled and gave me the faintest of winks.