The area was thronging with people, and beside the bridge was a car park packed with tourist buses. Tour guides were giving little talks through mini loudspeakers to their groups, and tourists were laughing and chattering, posing for photographs next to the famous iron girders.
The area along the river was crammed with food stalls and little shops selling souvenirs: key rings in the shape of the bridge; miniature models; T shirts; handbags and post cards.
‘This is pretty tacky,’ said Laura.
‘It’s just another tourist attraction to these people,’ said Luke. ‘What did you expect?’
They joined the procession of sightseers walking along the railway line and towards the steel bridge. Soon, Laura was walking on it, partly on the rails and partly on wooden boards. There were gaps in the boards, and through them she could see the river rushing underneath her. As Laura walked the other people around her seemed to fade away, and she thought about how the bridge would have looked when it was being built by the prisoners. She imagined bamboo scaffolding rising from the river, flanking the sides of the bridge, and swarms of skinny half-naked men working away on the girders, using rope pulleys to lift them into place, fixing them into position and using great spanners to secure the bolts.
‘I wonder if Dad was involved in building the bridge,’ she said as they reached the other side and paused to look back at the precarious route they had taken.
‘It would be difficult to find out,’ said Luke.
‘Well, I might be able to. If only I could find out whether he left an account somewhere.’
‘Why don’t you just forget about that?’ said Luke. ‘It might have been something he just made up to please you. He must have known he was dying.’
‘No. I’m sure there’s something in what he said. I’m going to go back to the Imperial War Museum when we get home. The old man who works there, the one who is an expert, might be back then. Maybe he’ll know something about it.’
‘I think you’re clutching at straws. Why don’t you give yourself a break and come along to the bar this evening. It’s only just along the road from the guesthouse. It would do you good to have a beer or two and relax. You can meet those Aussie guys I was telling you about.’ Reluctantly, she agreed.
Later, she sat at a wooden table outside the Patpong Bar, listening to the melancholic guitars of ‘Brothers in Arms’ by Dire Straits, sipping Chang beer and trying to seem interested in the predictable drunken travellers’ tales of the two Australians that Luke introduced her to: Jed was a prawn fisherman from Perth, his friend Dale, a builder from outside Sydney.
Laura’s mind kept returning to the horrors she’d seen at the Death Railway Museum, and the recurring thought that Dad, and countless others had suffered untold miseries very near this place. To sit drinking the night away like this was somehow trivialising what had happened here.
‘We’re going to head down to the islands pretty soon,’ said Dale. ‘This place hasn’t got a whole lot going for it, has it? Once you’ve seen the bridge and had an elephant ride along the river, that’s about it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jed. ‘We went to the bridge today. It’s not quite what it’s cracked up to be, is it? And have you been to that god-awful museum along the river? Talk about depressing! I guess some folks might like that type of thing, but that ain’t my idea of a holiday, walking around and looking at pictures of Jap torture treatments and fellas starving to death and the like.’
There was a silence. Luke was watching her, was waiting for her reaction.
She got up from the table. ‘Look, I hope you guys don’t mind if I call it a night. I’m feeling pretty tired. Not over my jet lag properly yet, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t go, Loz. We’ve only just started,’ said Luke.
‘You can stay here. I’m sure you’ll have a great evening without me. I’m just not feeling up to it, I’m afraid.’
She put a couple of hundred Baht notes on the table and then walked away.
19
The next morning they took a taxi to the station to catch the River Kwai Train, which travelled along the track the prisoners had built and up towards the Burmese border. It arrived late at Kanchanaburi Station, and as on the journey from Bangkok the train had only third class carriages. Luke was morose as they waited on the platform. He was nursing his head.
‘Jesus, that ganja was powerful stuff last night,’ he said.
‘I don’t mind going on my own if you don’t feel up to it.’
‘No. I might as well see as much as I can while I’m here,’ he said, but she sensed his discomfort as they climbed aboard and sat down on the wooden benches. The carriage was dingy and bare, painted brown, with old fashioned Thai advertisements for miracle toothpaste and jasmine tea stuck on its walls. The air was stifling and heavy and still as they waited for the train to move off. The tiny ceiling fans just stirred the hot air.
As soon as the train pulled out of the station and started chugging through the town, a tepid breeze began to filter through the open windows. Luke eased himself down into a lying position on the bench and covered his head with his hat.
‘You’re missing the view,’ said Laura, but he was already asleep.
The train had left the town behind now
