Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  When my ambulance arrived back at Morriston Hospital and the paramedics were busy wheeling my body into the accident and emergency room, both my mother and sister were already there.

  Naturally, they were terribly concerned that I was suffering almost uncontrollably, and they were asked to move aside so I could be wheeled back into the hospital. I was wheeled into a cubicle that was freezing cold, and a Filipino nurse soon attended to me.

  The first thing she did was hook up another bag of liquid paracetamol to help ease my pain. After that, she covered me with a blanket because I was shivering so much. Six hours later, I was admitted to Ward G for two more nights so I could stabilise. After I was discharged, I went back one week later because my surgeon wanted to check on my progress. After that, I returned to the Caribbean at the end of the week.

  The island customs stopped me at the baggage scanner and asked why I had so much medicine in my bag. I wasn’t feeling up to giving a long, drawn-out explanation, so I just lifted up my T-shirt to reveal my new scar. He motioned for me to pass through the gate without any further ado.

  I arrived at my house twenty minutes later, which looked fine from the outside. When I entered it, I was shocked to see mosquito curtains had been pinned around the entrance to my bedroom.

  The conman who was watching over my house for me had turned it into a showroom where he could sell his imported mosquito curtains from China. The plan was for the two of us to share the profits 50/50.

  He bought them for three dollars each, and he told me he was selling them for just ten dollars each. After paying the import duty, we were left with five and a half dollars to split between us … or so I was told.

  I pulled the trashy net off my bedroom doorframe because it was always in the way when I went through it. It left holes all around my new doorframe. I told him I did not want my house used as a showroom for the general public to enter, and I warned him not to do it again. After checking my personal items left in my bedroom drawers, I discovered many things had been stolen.

  The salesman encouraged the general public to pass through the net fixed around my bedroom door so they could see how it closed automatically behind them due to its magnetic strips. There was no way of telling who had taken all the gold and money I kept in my room, but that wasn’t of any concern to the conman as long as he secured new sales. For all I knew, he might have taken my things himself.

  The next day, I was disturbed by a loud knock on my door. An islander was returning to buy another mosquito curtain. I told him the salesman wasn’t around, but I would look for a curtain. I found one in the back bedroom, along with hundreds more like it.

  I asked him how much he paid before because I wasn’t sure what to charge, and he held out forty dollars. That was a surprise since my so-called partner had told me 50% of each curtain was not quite three dollars.

  After checking my emails, I discovered I had been accepted for a six-month contract in Delft, Holland and needed to fly there in just two weeks. I immediately started making arrangements to ship all my personal possessions back to the United Kingdom, and sold off as much of it as I could, including my beloved fishing gear!

  Nobody on that island ever seemed to have money, so I had no choice other than to let people take things with the promise that they’d pay me as soon as they had enough money. Of course, the outcome was obvious and I never received a cent.

  So six weeks after my operation I was off to work again, just a few months earlier than advised.

  Chapter 26

  The Netherlands

  I arrived in Amsterdam on the 27th of July 2012, which was a Friday morning and took my time getting to my usual hotel in the centre of the city, opposite the central railway station where Antonina had joined me before. I’d used the same hotel for many years whenever flight connections forced me to.

  They had recently renovated part of the old building, and I was lucky enough to get a new room. I went to sleep early that night, and I spent the next day wandering around looking in shop windows before taking a train south to Delft on the Sunday, which just happened to be my 50th birthday. A birthday I wasn’t expecting to reach.

  Just an hour later, I arrived in Delft. I was grateful that it was a warm and sunny day. The taxi driver recommended places to spend the day, and it was a good start to the new location.

  I found a nice bar where I could sit outside to enjoy the sunshine called the Café De Engel, lit a Cohiba, and sipped a cold Dutch beer. It all felt very relaxing until I heard a voice that was deliberately loud enough for me to hear.

  The voice said, “I bet he’s English, with a pint and a cigar.” I reacted by saying, “Welsh, actually.” I smiled and continued gazing out across the town square.

  The man introduced himself as Jack, a bricklayer from Northampton. He explained that he had been working in Delft and around that area for almost five years. He proceeded to recommend all the popular places to eat and drink.

  One of his younger Dutch friends turned up, Gordy, and they started taking me from one place to another, which was not a bad start for my first day in Delft.

  I woke up the next morning feeling a little worse for wear considering I was not to drink alcohol for the rest of my life, and took a taxi to the office where I would spend the next six months working as the project quality manager.

  The project was still in its front-end engineering design phase, so there was plenty to do, including writing procedures for the project staff to follow. I was only working from Monday to Friday, so I had every weekend to enjoy and absorb the ambience of Delft. I noticed numerous tourists of differing nationalities visiting the quaint little town.

  Due to the rather limited choice in my hotel’s restaurant, I chose to eat out every day by walking five minutes to the town square. The first bar I passed was called Café Koepoort, which meant ‘cow gate’ in Dutch. It was the original entrance to the square, where they had driven the cows through on market day hundreds of years before.

  The owner was a truly amazing lady called Sonja. Sonja and the other Dutch regulars in her bar became like family for me. Considering the pressure of so much work in the office, Sonja’s bar was a relaxing retreat.

  Not long after I arrived in Delft, my so-called island salesman friend offered to help me find a courier to ship my remaining cargo back to the United Kingdom. I knew only too well by then that when an islander offered to help, it was not going to be free.

  He quoted me $1,900 dollars to ship my cargo using a local island courier. He also sent me the company’s salesman’s name, email address, and phone number. That way I could check to ensure that the quote was genuine. Not.

  He also added that it was the last chance to ship anything back to Europe, the next opportunity would be six months later! As if!

  Of course, the deal had already been agreed upon, along with commissions and a few hundred dollars extra, but I wasn’t accepting it.

  My so-called local friend reacted very badly to my refusal after he, “Had gone to so much trouble to help me.” He told me to arrange my own courier. My cases were to stay in the house for several more weeks until a Dutch friend helped me find a professional courier who eventually shipped my things.

  That wasn’t before the conman went through all my things, helping himself to whatever he wanted. Some of the items he took were quite valuable and impossible to replace, especially all of my instruments I used for piping and welding inspection. He probably sold those to the island oil refinery workers because they’d be no good for anything else.

  His next email included the utilities bill for the previous month, which also horrified me. I couldn’t understand why my electricity bills were always double the normal cost when he was looking after my house than when I lived in it.

  A few weeks later, I discovered the reason.

  My very good Dutch friend Jan emailed me to ask whether he could buy two small wooden tables from me. His wife had seen them in my living room when they had collected a stereo system th
ey’d bought.

  I told him he could have the tables for free, all he had to do was collect them. I gave him the salesman’s mobile number so he could make sure the house was open when he arrived, so off he went.

  That evening, he emailed me to confirm he had the tables, but he explained how shocked he was when he arrived at the house. The front door was left wide open, and when he walked inside, he saw that all my air conditioners were on full blast.

  Also, the damn Chinese mosquito curtains had been refitted onto my bedroom doorframe … and all the other bedroom door-frames. He even put up a curtain on the back door.

  My dining room table was completely covered with hundreds of curtains, and my living room was full of boxes. The salesman had turned my house into a showroom and warehouse where the general public could check out the merchandise before buying it.

  It was great for the salesman: a rent-free showroom with free electricity. He boasted to my friend that he and his girlfriend spent their free days at the house. There, they got their washing done using the stock of powder and completed other tasks at my expense.

  Because my house was on the market, I called my real estate agent and had him visit my house to have the salesman remove everything. I wanted the conman kicked out, and I wanted the keys taken away from him.

  The conman sent me thirty-seven abusive emails that weekend, but I didn’t bother answering any of them.

  Jan found a courier who would fly my cargo back to the UK for just $535, proving the conman’s quote was totally ridiculous. I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for my Dutch friend. He did so much to help me. If only I had met him a few years earlier!

  After working a few weeks and trying to achieve as much as possible to bring the project deliverables up to date, I had finally worked myself half to death. I was not supposed to return to work for a few months, so just six weeks after my operation was way too soon.

  One Saturday morning, I was wandering around the town square area in Delft watching a brass band playing whilst talking on the phone to my mother. I started to lose the feeling in my left hand, with which I was holding my phone.

  After a short time, my entire arm began to go numb. Then my right arm began to feel the same. I was now using both hands to hold my phone because it began to feel heavier by the minute. I started experiencing pins and needles all over my back, and my legs became heavy to move.

  I finally made it to a bench seat in the town square, so I took the weight off my feet whilst continuing to talk to my mother. She was getting increasingly worried as I described what was happening to me.

  My arms became too heavy to hold my phone to my ear, so I said goodbye to my mother. I told her I would call her back later.

  I felt weaker by the minute, and I ended up lying down on the bench. At that point, I began sweating intensely all over my body. I ended up completely soaked. I decided I couldn’t stay there indefinitely, so I slowly sat up and gazed across the square. I saw the first bar I went to, where I had met Jack on my birthday.

  I slowly stood up, but I felt very giddy. I was walking all over the place like a drunken man. People were looking at me wondering what was wrong with me.

  I managed to get to the bar, but I almost fell on top of the outside tables whilst passing them to enter the premises. At the bar, I sat on a stool. The barman came over to me and asked whether I was feeling okay.

  I told him I wasn’t feeling very well, and he gave me a glass of water. He called the owner who had recently recovered from a cancer operation himself. He tried to call an ambulance, but due to the brass band’s performance, all the streets were closed off.

  I called a local Dutch friend called Myrthe, but she told me she was out of town coaching hockey and could not get to me. I next called Jack. He was free, and he came straight to the bar to meet me.

  In the meantime, Myrthe called Sonja, and she dropped what she was doing to find me. Following the bar owner’s directions, she managed to drive reasonably close to the bar. Both Jack and the bar owner walked with me by walking on either side of me in case I fell one way or the other.

  Ten minutes later, Sonja arrived and drove me to the Delft hospital. They kept me there until the next morning when I felt fine again and went home.

  A strange visitor landed outside my hospital bed window while I lay there alone. It reminded me of the pigeon outside my house back on the island, the day my mother had visited me. It was a little freaky, as even when I walked down the hospital ward’s corridor to the television room, the feathery visitor walked along the outside wall until it could look at me again.

  The next day, I went back to Sonja’s bar in the afternoon to thank her for helping me the day before, but she wasn’t there. Instead, Myrthe was there along with a carrier bag she had filled with a new razor, toothbrush, toothpaste, other toiletries, and a new pair of pyjamas. She was about to bring it all to me while I was in the hospital as she knew I didn’t have anyone else to help me. That was so typical of the thoughtful and wonderful people in Delft.

  I moved out of the hotel and into an apartment because the company I was working for said it was cheaper for them. It was a good move because it gave me the opportunity to cook for my local Dutch friends and invite them over from time to time.

  The Dutch encouraged me to learn the local customs, and near Christmas, on the 5th of December, they all came over to my apartment with very nice food that they had prepared the night before. They came with little presents, which they’d wrapped up ready to play a ‘Sinta Claus’, or ‘Sinterklaas’, patron saint of children, game after we had finished eating.

  In the Netherlands, ‘Sinterklaas’ came before Santa Claus and added to the build up to Christmas. As usual my wonderful Delft friends helped me clean up before they left. ‘Sinterklaas’ was a very exciting time for children and on the previous weekend, ‘Sinterklaas’ had ridden a white horse through the streets of Delft. Everyone in Delft was out that day and had lined the streets in readiness to watch ‘Sinterklaas’ riding by. It was so busy that day, and the atmosphere in the beautiful little town was electric.

  During December, I’d arranged to spend Christmas back in Thailand. I hadn’t been to Thailand for five years and I often wondered how Wi was doing. We had kept in occasional email and telephone contact since I’d left the country and Wi always stressed how worried she was when I told her what was going on in my life, so I booked flights and a hotel room in Bangkok and off I went.

  Wi was waiting for me at the airport to welcome me back, but where I didn’t know. After walking around for an hour I found a kiosk which was to help tourists. A very nice Thai gentleman had been watching me looking around and offered to help me. As my mobile phone didn’t work there he used his phone to call Wi.

  Wi answered her phone and explained that she thought she’d seen me walking past her several times, but she remembered me as short and fat, not short and slim, so didn’t approach me. I told her to go to exit gate number three which I was close to, so she met me a few seconds later. Wi looked exactly the same as I remembered her five years before.

  She was amazed how much weight I had lost due to my pancreas problem and told me that she couldn’t call me ‘Baby Pig’ any more. Actually, due to my pancreas and new diet, I had lost twenty-eight kilos so some good came out of it. It also rendered me as a non-smoker, much to Wi’s delight, but I would still have the occasional beer from time to time; but not too often.

  It was also the perfect opportunity to meet up with Neil, or should I say Alan #3?

  We hadn’t met for four years so Neil and I had a lot to talk about. It was also a great opportunity to show Neil my favourite restaurant in Bangkok. It was probably the only place Neil hadn’t already been to in Bangkok. It was a seafood market as well as a restaurant and located half way down Soi 24, off Sukhumvit Road.

  We had the taxi stop before we entered Soi 24 so we could walk the rest of the way. Actually, I had forgotten how far down the Soi the restaurant actually
was and it felt like forever until we could finally see its huge street sign.

  You could simply buy your choice of fresh seafood from all around the world and take it home, or have it cooked any way you fancied and eat there. It was the restaurant’s proud boast that if it swims they’d have it! You couldn’t possibly miss the street sign either.

  It was my original plan to fly north to meet her family again as her father wanted to show me how my cows were doing. I had bought five cows back when I worked in Kuala Lumpur, but they had increased since then to over thirty so Wi’s father was very proud of all he had done while taking care of them. My time in Bangkok went very quickly so I didn’t make it up there. Sad, really, as I hadn’t seen them since my Thai wedding day.

  Instead, we spent my short visit in downtown Bangkok and exercising Wi’s little dog, Booboo. She had rescued him from Thai children in the street near her place. They were throwing the newly born puppy up into the air and watching it land on the ground. Wi ran over and rescued the poor little puppy, its eyes still closed, and taken it home to try to bring him up herself.

  Wi fed him milk through a syringe and he managed to survive. She took extra special care of him and called him Booboo. Wi also made monthly trips to the local veterinary for Booboo to be checked over and have his injections to protect him from getting heartworm, which is prolific in hot countries.

  I promised that I’d see her father on my next visit, which would be in July 2013.

  My work in Delft was extended until the end of January 2013, which suited me fine because I was busy looking for another contract back overseas. I definitely didn’t want a lapse in work after being out of commission for almost five months in 2012 due to my pancreas.

  I was happy to leave my job there as it released me so I could return to an overseas location, but deeply saddened with the thought of when I would next see my Dutch friends.