The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison (20 page)

Somehow I decided that we could work it out, that this wasn’t the end of relationship. We had come through so much already, so surely we could get through this. This was to be a new beginning for the three of us, so his misdemeanours could all be regulated to the past tense and we would just start over. Nevertheless, five girls, on top of the tasteless porn magazines was a lot to try to forget about—especially since it all took place in the very bed I was trying to sleep in every night—but I was prepared to try. I don’t think that Garth wanted to hear this from me and things only went from bad to worse over the following days. He continued to pick fights and behave belligerently towards me. It felt like he was pushing me to make the break. He complained that I had forced him to marry me; he might as well have kicked me in the belly.

Something else was gnawing at me during these dark days. He was still going out an awful lot instead of trying to work on us, and there were phone calls that I clearly wasn’t meant to be privy too. In a moment of absolute clarity one day, I found myself asking him the question I just had to ask.

‘Are you having an affair?’

His reply was swift. ‘Yes!’

‘Are you in love with her?’

‘Yes!’

‘Do you plan on being with her?’

‘Yes!’

Ah.

This man I had given up everything for; this man who had promised my then six-year-old child that he would always be there for her; had just dumped on us both. I didn’t know him anymore. I decided that we shouldn’t make any swift decisions, for Talya’s sake. She had gone to stay with friends when the atmosphere in the apartment grew increasingly tense. He agreed with me but actions speak louder than words. He was spending a lot of time with the other woman and my unhappiness prevented me from noticing that I wasn’t well at all. I had lost a lot of weight and was down to 100lbs and seemed to be permanently, and heavily, menstruating. But I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell on my health just yet.

The day before Easter I found him in the bedroom packing a bag. He had worked long hours all week and was spending the holiday weekend with his new girlfriend. He looked at me cautiously but I hadn’t the energy for a fight. He looked at me but couldn’t see that I was broken-hearted.

‘Garth, I know you’re going to leave me no matter what so I just wanted to tell you that I am releasing you to her with my blessing. This is how much I love you, I’m letting you go.’

He reddened as he snapped his bag closed. I handed him a small silver heart and told him to give it to his girlfriend as a gift from me. I had no control over what was happening to me but I could try to control my own reactions to the situation. I couldn’t, however, stop my tears as he walked out the door.

I stood out on the freezing street and watched Garth drive off. I was cold, alone and utterly miserable. I couldn’t face going back indoors and, instead, felt in need of easy company.

Suddenly, I thought of Josh, a homeless guy, that I had befriended, who always warned me that the Russians were coming to get us. He was very paranoid and afraid of other men; obviously he had been badly hurt or beaten up at some stage. I had made a habit of bringing him for coffee and cake when I was free, and decided to go looking for him now. He brightened up when he saw me coming, his comrade-in-arms, and I certainly needed to be around someone who was glad to see me and needed me more than I did him.

‘C’mon Josh, I’m buying you an Easter dinner,’ I told him.

I brought him to a fancy cafe and bought him expensive gooey cakes covered in chocolate and cream. It was great to be with someone who knew nothing of what was going on and wouldn’t have been the least bit interested either. I managed to forget my troubles for a while.

A couple of hours later I bade Josh goodbye and slowly headed home, my heart growing heavier with every step. And, as if it wasn’t already a bad enough day, I discovered to my horror that I had locked myself out. I thought I was going to lay down and die there and then. I stared at my door in bewilderment, trying to work out a solution through my tiredness.

Thankfully, I remembered my friendly neighbour down the hall. Dave Littman had fought in Vietnam and lived with the scars, psychologically and physically. He had the most trusting, open face and we had been greeting one another in the elevator for a while. I must have looked a bit of a fright to him and he did confess to me later that he thought I had cancer because I looked so ill that day. He took me in for tea and a good chat, and contacted the caretaker to rescue me with his house key. Only, the caretaker had to be cajoled by both of us since he had only ever dealt with Garth and had never seen me before. Finally, I got into my apartment and almost wept with gratitude. I made myself a pot of tea and settled in to watch Russell Crowe in
Master And Commander
—I just felt it would be too depressing to go straight to bed and needed an adventurous and brave story to rouse my spirits.

A couple of days later I was in dire straits. The bleeding had increased, making it necessary for me to wear a home-made diaper. I was passing blood non-stop and my energy was failing. This wasn’t just a broken heart and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. There was no food or drinking water in the apartment and there was no way I could make it out to get them. I was determined not to ring Talya. She had enough to cope with at the time. There had to be someone else I could ring—Larry!

I rang his number and was relieved to hear him say hello. I didn’t mention Garth but I told him that I needed to go to hospital and could he recommend one. I didn’t want to start dissing Garth to his best friend, and besides, I hadn’t the strength to tell a long and complicated story. Also, I suppose I was still hoping against hope that Garth would come back and tell me he had made a mistake. If I had to articulate what had happened, to Larry, I would only be acknowledging that Garth had really fallen out of love with me and left me high and dry. And I just wasn’t up to that yet.

Larry told me he would get right on it and ring around the hospitals to see which one was best. I told him I’d be right where I was, waiting, which was the literal truth as I could no longer even get to the bathroom. The seconds ticked away mercilessly and the phone rang again. I picked it up expecting to hear Larry’s voice. Instead, it was Maria, my good friend from Norway, who’d lived and worked with me for years in Bangkok. She was always very close to me and Talya and the sound of her voice made my eyes well up with the realisation of how much I was missing her and how so very glad I was to hear her now.

At this point, I could hardly speak beyond an almost incoherent mumble.

‘Oh my God, Susan, you sound terrible,’ she said.

One of the best things about close friends is that they don’t waste time trying to discover the ins and outs of a situation before administering help. I managed to tell her I was waiting to hear from Larry about an appropriate hospital. She asked where Garth was and I gave her his girlfriend’s phone number. Without any investigation she took down the number, hung up, and immediately rang to tell Garth that I was in urgent need of his help. He arrived, reluctantly, a short while later, grumbling about this being his weekend off from work. I asked him to help me to the bathroom. There was blood running down my legs and up my backside and I needed to bathe before I could think about anything else. He helped me into the bath and then turned to leave. I was astonished and begged him to stay.

‘I’m too weak to sit in the water, if you leave me I’ll drown.’

He helped me wash and change. I also asked him to get me some spinach and a steak. I knew with the amount of blood I was losing that I required iron, and fast. He complied and I told him to barely cook the steak because I needed every drop of blood on the plate. I wolfed it down and tipped the plate to my mouth to drink the blood. Then, for dessert, I had a can of spinach. As soon as I had eaten, Garth took off back to his girlfriend’s house and I lay down to sleep.

The following day I took a blood test and discovered that my haemoglobin count was half what it should be. In other words, I had lost a huge amount of blood. I rang Larry to give him the news and he told me to have Garth bring me to hospital. He still didn’t know that there was anything wrong with the relationship but told me that if Garth couldn’t bring me, he would. I still preferred to ring Garth rather than fill Larry in. He came around and brought me to the hospital that Larry had recommended. There, my situation was explained to me in no uncertain terms—I was in danger of dying from the massive blood loss. I got upset at the hospital and explained that I couldn’t afford to be treated.

However a social worker told me that I was in dire need of medical care and that some arrangement could be made about payment once I was well again. Miraculously, Dr David Dansky was on duty. He had helped me once before, and now took up my cause; I never received one bill. I was having a mid-life fibroid or uterine polyps, which is common with women my age. They put me on strong medication to stop the bleeding and then made an appointment for me with a gynaecologist. Once the bleeding stopped and I felt a little stronger they sent me home. I couldn’t face any food because of my distressed state so I consumed lots of high protein drinks instead. Then I said a prayer and got online and managed to find the generous Dr Paul Indman who offered to treat me for free after I explained my situation. Never underestimate the power of prayer!

Basically the problem was caused by fingernail-sized growths in my uterus, which had burst and wouldn’t stop bleeding. It was a relatively minor operation which involved a tiny camera being inserted into my vagina and up to the uterus to burn off the polyps. He also put me on a double dose of badly needed iron. I was going to need to build myself up for the rocky road ahead. Although, I was proud of myself for jumping the first hurdle clear. The night before the operation Garth came to spend the night in the apartment as he was driving me to the doctor’s surgery in San Jose. He was upset when he arrived as he had just found out that a very close friend had told him he had Parkinson’s syndrome. The guy had become a mutual friend and was happily married with children. The news was a terrible shock and Garth was devastated. I comforted him just like I had done for all those years when I visited him in prison. One thing led to another and Garth begged me to let him make love to me. I thought about it—I thought that if I did he might come back to me—and I had to struggle to say no with any conviction. I wasn’t stooping to his level and cheating on his girlfriend with him. He told me he still found me sexually desirable, which thrilled me, but I put my foot down. I knew I would hate myself if I gave in. He shrugged and rolled over on his side and was snoring within minutes. Any woman who has been in that situation will know exactly what it took for me to say no that night. I wanted him with every fibre of my being, but I won’t be a pit-stop for anyone!

After the treatment I told Garth to find and rent a house for Talya and me. I was in a slow recovery process and needed to return to the hospital for additional checkups and I just wanted somewhere half-decent where I could live in peace with my daughter. Garth rented a house from one of his friends, only he ‘forgot’ to pay the rent. The guy was nice about it and was even prepared to allow us to go on living there, but I was concerned about the fact that he smoked grass and drank a lot. It wasn’t good for Talya, or me in my weakened state, and it wasn’t right to expect him to change his life for us.

Larry saved us again by offering to take us in. He and Cathy took me into their shared accommodation and we ended up living there for the next two years. These good friends were caring, compassionate people and could always be relied on in a crisis. I don’t know what I would have done without them. They got me together again after I fell into a deep depression, with days so bad that I couldn’t even lift my legs off the floor to exercise.

Inevitably Talya suffered too. We both felt so let down and without roots and strength to help one another. I suppose we went through a grieving process initially, over losing a partner and father. I struggled with the feelings of rejection that I knew so well from being rejected at birth and Talya was unable to resist overwhelming feelings of empathy for what I was going through, compounded by her own sense of personal loss. It was a bleak time but that little community we formed inside that house ultimately saved us. We helped with the cooking, shopping, cleaning and babysitting. Cathy was a teacher and I envied her people skills and almost psychic ability to know how to deal with a troubled person.

I learnt a lot from her and Larry in the area of care-giving. It was a little difficult to find myself in the role of the one in need of care but, fortunately, I was too weak to put up a resistance based on pride and ego. Anyway, over the coming months, as my strength and confidence returned, I was able to contribute to the household and give them something back. We all grew incredibly close—in fact, Larry and I started to develop feelings for one another. We knew that we couldn’t let things get serious between us, however, as he had his own stuff to deal with and we both knew that I was gearing myself up to return to Thailand. But first I wanted a divorce.

Garth was back doing drugs again and had been busted, so I was anxious to cut the ties that bound him legally to Talya and I. He seemed surprised when I told him what I wanted. Maybe in his head he thought he was on a break from the marriage and fatherhood and could return to it once he had his bit of fun. If that indeed was the case then it was unfortunate for him because I wanted no more of him or anything to do with him. I’m a soft-hearted romantic but I had reached the stage that if he had crawled back to me on his hands and knees begging for my forgiveness I would’ve definitely forgiven him and then slammed the door in his face. I had just discovered the truth behind the saying, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ and I certainly wasn’t dead!