Best British Short Stories 2020 by Nicholas Royle (best novels to read for students txt) 📕

smiled and walked over to the counter to pay my bill. While I was settling up, I could feel Pete’s lecherous eyes on me. I couldn’t wait to get away.

I spent the next or hour or so meandering around a set of narrow, deserted back streets that put me slightly on edge. At one point I fetched up in what amounted to an African quarter. I was so surprised to find such a high concentration of black people in such an improbable location that I was momentarily confounded. My overriding feeling, however, was one of relief. No-one seemed especially interested in me. For the first time since arriving in the city I wasn’t being gawped at.

When my feet began to ache – Converse trainers are not ideal for pounding pavements – I popped into a bar. A narrow hole in the wall with a few stools jammed up against a counter, the place was deserted. In the cramped area behind the counter sat two dark-skinned Thai women with long black hair and more attitude than I was prepared for. They didn’t so much as nod, let alone try to serve me. I stood at the counter and waited for one to approach, but instead they averted their eyes and started speaking in Thai. I was baffled. They had clearly seen me, and it was obvious that I was waiting to be served, so what the hell were they playing at? So much, I thought, for the famed Thai hospitality. I cleared my throat and, trying to disguise my anger, said, ‘Excuse me, would it be possible to get a bit of service, please?’ No sooner had I finished than an old white guy with a copper-tan face and a grey, walrus moustache emerged from a room behind the counter through a beaded curtain. Though quite bald on top, he was sporting a grey pony-tail and was dressed in a black sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his flabby tattooed arms, and a pair of washed-out denim shorts. I pegged him for a retired biker seeing out his days in the tropics. He came straight over and said, ‘Where you from?’ His accent was North American and, judging by the way the girls stiffened in his presence, either owned the place or ran it. When I told him I was from London, he visibly relaxed.

‘Well that explains a lot.’ He stared at me before continuing, ‘Listen, no offence, but as a rule we don’t usually serve your type in here. Gotta bunch o’ Nigerians round the way who were using the place to peddle dope. Had to bar ’em, see? But you’re all right. And just to show there’s no hard feelings, have a drink on me. What’s your poison?’ I couldn’t believe my ears.

‘I’m good,’ I said, then turned and walked.

I spent the next few minutes ambling along a busy main road, trying not to think about how much I missed Anna, becoming increasingly annoyed at having to negotiate the narrow, overcrowded pavements. Several times I was forced to walk in the street. At other times I had to press myself against a wall or a shop front to allow people to go by. All the while I kept getting stared at. During our last WhatsApp chat, Miriam had encouraged me to make a trip to the famous Khao San Road. She’d called it ‘the spot’ and said it was full of ‘hot chicks’. It didn’t sound like my kind of place, but it was either that or head back to my hotel room to watch TV.

The tuk-tuk ride got me to Khao San Road in about twenty minutes. On the way, the narrow maze of streets became clogged with vehicles and the air increasingly polluted. Several times I had to cover my nose and mouth to avoid inhaling the cloying stench of petrol fumes, and such was the humidity that even in an open-sided tuk-tuk I was sweating all over. Toy, my poker-faced driver, deposited me at what he said was the quieter end of Khao San Road. Thick with backpackers, it didn’t seem quiet to me. Toy and I haggled good-humouredly over the fare before I relented and paid him what he originally asked for. Wearing nothing but a pair of faded Hawaiian shorts and some worn-down flip-flops, he kissed the back of my hand theatrically, started the engine of his tuk-tuk, turned it down a side-street and was gone. Moments later I was surrounded by a trio of small Thai boys. They seemed to appear out of nowhere and must have been waiting for the right moment to pounce. None looked older than twelve. Tugging at my arm and fighting with each other for my attention, they shoved their wares into my face with barely controlled aggression. One had a forearm full of leather bracelets, another was clutching a fistful of fake gold jewellery, while the third specialised in what looked to me like satin scarves. Everything was available at a ‘special price’. Politely but firmly, I told them I wasn’t interested and to emphasise the point wriggled free of their clutches and strode purposefully away. Long after I’d gone I heard them calling, but I didn’t look back. I didn’t dare.

There was no other way to get down Khao San Road except to stroll. At every turn someone was blocking my path. With a mounting sense of frustration, it eventually dawned on me that I was in a rush to go nowhere and that I would have a far better time of it if I did like everyone else and slowed down. It was all too easy to see why the road attracted so many backpackers. It had an aroma of vice almost as pungent as the roadside food stalls. Miriam had described the area as vibrant, which was beginning to seem like a euphemism for noisy. Techno blared from open-fronted, neon-lit bars and each bar had its attendant knot of silver-tongued, English-speaking touts shouting at the