Most weekends my husband runs away from home. It’s a bit disconcerting, though not entirely uncalled for. In his defence, I am a domineering, acid-tongued surl. I snore like a trumpet. According to an online quiz, I’m uniquely underwhelming in the sack. So when Saturday bitches around, he’s out the door and I’m lamentably on me tod.
But escapee hubby doesn’t disappear to moon soulfully on a bench or run into traffic on purpose, as proposed by every Cambodian music video ever made. I know this because, bless, he actually tells me where he’s pissing off to. I’m sorry but I can’t tell you where in case The Man shakes it down and I end up punned to death in the Police Blotter. Suffice to say my bloke absconds to the leafy corner of a historic national landmark in central Phnom Penh to do manly, vigorous things with all the other connubial fugitives in our hood. It’s like Opus Dei for henpecked husbands.
So while you and I (and by ‘you’, I mean ‘probably just me’) are drowning our marital sorrows with a Panda-warm pinot and a desultory fiddle on Tinder, he’s yukking it up deep inside this particular touristic imperative in a Cambo-style mancave populated by fellows of every feather. It’s the one place a Two Star can banter with the chicken-embryo snack dude. Plus it’s like a fucking resort in there. There’s boules for the gallically inclined, the day’s papers, comfy seating, shady trees and skinny cats with massive testicles schmoozing about.
At the heart of this sanctuary, sat on an incense-pricked tree stump, is a beat-up, 22” veteran TV showing non-stop fights. Here my absentee other half and his shouty mates squint through the snowy static, transfixed by every genre of arsekickery the rabbit ears will allow: local, international, boxing with gloves, bareknuckle shitfights in cages, wrestling real or RAW. I can’t say I blame them. Fit, sweaty men beating the living daylights out of each other in a safe and responsible environment is one of my top hottest things. I’m Catholic in my combat proclivities.
Sure, I love a good movie stoush – the first few minutes of RDJ’s Sherlock Holmes; that sulky, trapezoid Tom Hardy bloke in The Warrior, obviously hot Brad and interestingly hot Edward in Fight Club. Plus there’s Raging Bull and a hundred other Oscar-worthy knockout punch-ups. But a proper live bollocking just can’t be beat. Take a front row seat between the screaming stable mama and the bookie with 25 plywood-taped Nokias, pick your shorts colour and settle back for the spit, swagger and curly wurly flute music that accompanies every thrilling Khun Khmer duel.
Especially entertaining are the local lads coolly and expertly dispatching pasty foreign pub chancers. While the scrappy imports jab and grimace, our boys calmly kick their crap to the kerb: I’m no expert, but those white guys always forget to use their legs. And that vertical elbow hammer to the top of their heads when they least expect it? Bam. And the crowd goes wild! Best of all, if you happen to ‘get lost’ on the way to the Ladies, you may find yourself smiling inanely at linimenty Khmer superstars, sat glistening in the change rooms, wrapping their hands veeery slowly and veeery tight.
It occurs to me on rereading this that, though we don’t see eye to eye on everything, me and my man share a love of physical violence that could just get our relationship off the ropes. Perhaps I should talk about this with him over a romantic night at the Bayon big screen, or hammer it out over a bottle of muscle wine. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.