Nothing like a bit of drama to end the day

The background: a friend of mine who shall remain anonymous – let's call her Anastasia– managed to get herself into a sticky situation when she met a rather attractive Thai guy at the swimming pool the other weekend. She invited him round for a drink (well okay, it was actually me who invited him for a drink at hers – mostly by mime since his English is only about as good as my Thai), then after I went home, one thing led to another, you know how it is.

That would have been the end of it, since Anastasia decided she couldn't really be bothered to pursue anything with a guy who didn't speak English. But on Sunday evening she got home to find a note pushed under her door, purporting to be from this guy's wife (who obviously speaks much better English than he does). In the note she explains that because he'd stayed out all night with the key to their apartment she'd been unable to get in, and “he tell me he go here but I not belive him. It's true? Please tell me... Why he stay until morning?” before going on to add, “he bad man. I want free of him”.

Well, that would certainly have been the end of it, since Anastasia certainly had no wish to get involved with a married man... but then she calls me in a state of distress saying he's banging on the door and won't go away. I live about 20 minutes from her, but I say I'll get in a taxi over there (I don't know what I thought I was going to do – I've seen this guy in a bathing suit and he clearly spends a lot of time working out. I can see me marching up indignantly and giving him a very stern ticking-off). So out I dash, the maid asks me where I'm going, “bai bahn peu-an. Phuying mai phuchai!” (“I go home friend – girl not boy!”). On the way over I get a text saying his wife's now arrived on the scene and the two are screaming at each other in the corridor. By the time I arrive, however, it's all over (shame, since I was quite looking forward to giving him a battering), Anastasia's had a chat with the wife who's really very reasonable about the whole thing (seems he has violent as well as adulterous tendencies and she “want him go”). Anastasia and I get ice-cream and beer to calm her nerves (well, the beer was to calm her nerves; the ice-cream was for me), and I see her back to her room before making my way back home.