Sophie left early that morning; up at five and at the airport for a seven o’clock flight to Bangkok with a connection to Paris. They had said their farewells the previous evening with the promise they would meet again in Paris.
After breakfast Barton lounged around half heartedly wondering what to do with himself for the rest of the day. Howard would not be there until about six or seven that evening. The temples were certainly interesting, but he had had his dose, finally after thumbing through a few brochures and speaking with the villa’s aimiable major-domo he decided on a boat trip. The nearby Lake Tonle Sap, he was told, was the largest fresh water lake in South-East Asia.
He was driven to Chong Khneas, a floating village — at least that’s how it was described in the guidebook. To his disappointment, with the dry season approaching its end, the level of the lake was at its lowest, leaving the village high though not very dry; the broad banks of the lake resembled a vast a mud swamp. It may have been picturesque floating, but beached it was a miserable quagmire; little better than the most wretched of villages he had witnessed in southern India.
He made his way over the rickety board walks and took his place in the small motor boat that had been hired for him, the driver handed the boatman a plastic bag containing a light lunch composed of a couple of chilled cans of soda, sandwiches and fresh fruit. With a wave from the driver the boatman pushed off heading out onto the lake at a leisurely speed. Barton positioned himself under the canopy taking cover from the already hot sun and away from the noise of the small motor then sat back to enjoy the scenery. The breeze provided a pleasant cooling effect; a change from the brutal contrast between the fierce heat of the outside sun and the chill of the guesthouse’s overworked air-conditioning.
As the village disappeared behind them the boatman eased off on the motor and they moved smoothly across the still waters. From time to time and he pointed at a bird or the isolated clusters of fishermen’s huts that drifted across the surface of the lake.
Barton’s thoughts wandered, there was no denying it was pleasant enough boating on a strange lake at the other end of the world, but there was his own curious self-made dilemma, what was he going to do next? It was now two months since he had started his odyssey and at the rate it was going there was no end in sight, there was no fixed objective in sight; he could not continue as an eternal tourist, meeting people, saying goodbye, living in hotel rooms. He was drifting like one of the villages, without familiar surroundings and fixed friends. As a single man he had had few close friends, those around him had been business friends for the most part, more precisely acquaintances. He decided he would speak to Steve Howard whose life appeared to be in some ways similar to his own.
It was after three when he returned to the guesthouse feeling he had seen a little of the real Cambodians and their country. He showered and walked the half mile or so to the centre of the town and found a sidewalk bar where he sat down to watch the passers-bye, tourists and locals working in the tourist trade. When he returned he found Steve seated on the garden veranda drinking a beer.
‘Looks like you could do with a beer.’
Barton nodded approvingly.
‘Good flight?’
‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘What’s your programme?’
‘Got to see the local partners tomorrow probably have dinner with them — and you?
‘Said goodbye to my friends…,’ he lifted his hands trying to look for a logical continuation.
‘Why don’t you join me tomorrow, it’ll be interesting.’
Barton thought for a short moment then acquiesced.
‘Why not.’
The beer arrived and Barton felt better. Then little by little told Howard of his dilemma.
‘So — if I can be direct — you don’t know what to do next.’
‘Exactly,’ he replied ruefully.
‘It’s not as bad as that, relax, something will turn up. You don’t have any problem meeting people. I mean there’s your friend, Sophie.
‘I suppose so,’ Barton replied a little despondently.
‘Come on Tom,’ Howard said with an amused laugh, ‘you’ve got no money problems. A lot of people would like to be in your position.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he replied trying to snap out of his maudlin mood. ‘I’ll have to put it to work — and that’s another of my problems, given the present economic situation.’
‘Concentrate on that. Start by pulling out of the stock market.’
‘Don’t worry I’ve already done that.’
‘Good. One of the short term things to do is to buy into oil.’
‘Oil?’
‘Yes, oil. It’s now at one hundred dollars a barrel and it’s going up. That what Sergei tells me, it’s from the horse’s mouth. It’s the best tip you’ll get for a long time, buy oil futures, it’ll cost you a few thousand pounds up front, you can’t lose.’
‘How come?’
‘Look put what you can into oil futures for July put options.’
‘How much?’
‘Five thousand barrels.’
‘Five thousand barrels!’
A quick calculation told him that five thousand barrels was enough to fill ten thousand or more large cars.
‘That’s five hundred grand.’
‘Come off it Tom, don’t tell me you can’t afford it, you’ll only need ten percent up front?’
Barton was not really a betting man, but then fifty thousand up front was not that big a deal. If Steve was right then perhaps he could make more than the lousy interest rate he was pulling in from his term accounts.