by Morris West
‘Thank you, General.’
‘Let me walk you out to the car.’
In the garden, he plucked a bloom from the frangipani tree and handed it to me. As I inhaled the heavy sweet perfume, he said, ‘That’s how I remember my daughter best: a little girl sitting by the fishpond, making garlands of flowers… I must visit my granddaughter as soon as I can face her without shame. At present she is staying with a relative of mine in our embassy… If you would call to see her it would be a great kindness. She knows only that her mother is dead. The circumstances are being kept from her… Strange! She and my daughter loved Cassidy so much. I wonder if he knows how much grief he left behind!’
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t believe Cassidy gave a hoot in hell. What kept me silent was the unbidden thought that I was living Cassidy’s gospel to the letter: ‘Never get mad, get even. A man can smile and smile and still be the son-of-a-bitch he wants to be.’
When I got back I was numb with fatigue and half stifled by the lethal smog of the city. I went down to the pool, which was crowded with guests, found myself a lounger on the shady side, ordered a Planter’s Punch and settled down to watch the passing beauties: Thai, Chinese, Japanese, American, Australian, Burmese, Indian, and all the flavours in between. The embarrassment of riches overwhelmed me very quickly, because the next thing I remembered was Laura prodding me awake and telling me I was snoring my head off and disturbing the other guests.
I ordered another drink to celebrate her arrival. She talked about the luncheon in one of the dependencies at the Palace and the long tour of inspection on which she had been taken while her father was discussing business with the Air Marshal who was to be his principal associate. Everything seemed to have gone well, although there were one or two crucial questions to be decided. I guessed that I might have the answer to one of them, so I asked the pool steward to bring me a telephone and called Melville in his suite. The masseur answered. I asked if I could interrupt his ministrations long enough to convey some important information to Mr. Melville. When I told him I had seen the General and that he had agreed to sell his and his daughter’s shares, Melville gave a small bark of approval.
‘Good! Very good! You work like Cassidy. Tic-tac! The matter is settled… Did you discuss a price?’
‘It wasn’t appropriate. I told him, as you had told me, the buy-out would be generous. We should demonstrate that.’
‘We shall, we shall! It sounds as though you are talking from the pool.’
‘I am.’
‘Is Laura with you?’
‘She’s just arrived. Do you want to speak with her?’
‘No. You can pass the message. Tell her I’m calling the Air Marshal now to see if we can arrange a visit to the hotel site tomorrow. That means putting off our meeting; but it seems we’re on the same wavelength now, so there’s no real hurry, is there? You might care to fly down with us to Phuket… Think about it. Talk to Laura.’
When I passed her the message, she gave me a long, questioning look. Then she asked bluntly, ‘Am I hearing right? I expected fireworks between you and father. He told me your talk this morning was very abrasive. What’s happened to change things?’
‘Nothing. I did what I promised: offered to buy out the Rhana shares. The General agreed. That obviously has cleared an obstacle from your father’s path. He’s happy. For today, I’m his white-haired boy.’
‘And tomorrow?’
I looked around. The bathers were drifting away. The seats left and right of us were empty. So I told her the truth.
‘Tomorrow or the next day, or the day after, he’ll have me killed. Unless, of course…’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless I dump my wife and family and marry you!’
I knew what she wanted to say: that it was all a paranoid fiction and she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t believe one crazy word of it. Instead, she sat, dumb and dejected, shaking her head from side to side as if to clear away the vestiges of a nightmare.
Finally, she found voice. ‘I know at least part of that is true, because he put the same thing to me in a different way. He said: “If you’re fond of this Gregory, grab him and take him to bed and keep him happy there. If you can’t, the boys are going to drop him off the deep end of the pier, because he’s dangerous. Cassidy was dangerous too, but he was dancing to the same music as we were. Not this one! We’re in waltz-time, he’s doing a barn dance. So see what you can do, like a good girl!”’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Like a good girl, I said I’d try. I want to keep you alive, Martin.’
‘Did your father tell you what he had done with my wife?’
‘More than he told you, I think, Martin.’
‘Then I want to hear the rest of it.’
‘Once he’d got her thoroughly upset with rumours of your fictitious escapades – Pornsri was one of the names mentioned, by the way; I was another; God knows who else was on the list – then he paid a very handsome ski-meister to seduce her into a love affair. She was angry enough and enough of her father’s daughter to say to hell with you and toss her cap over the windmill.’
‘Just like we did – borrowing a little fun out of a lousy lifetime. I can’t say I blame her!… But, by the living God, I hate your father’s guts!’
‘How do you think I feel? I used to think there was something wonderful and sacred about being old-country, old-family. Now I know what it really means. I feel like – like a she-camel, up for barter in the bazaar. Order me another drink, will you? I want to get drunk!’
I couldn’t afford her drunk, or talkative, or betrayed by self-pity, so I made her dive into the pool with me and we swam, up and down, until the anger in us both was damped to a dull glow. Then we made a pact of silence – our own omertà – and sealed it with a long and very public kiss under the frangipani trees.
I hoped Marius Melville saw the kiss from his eyrie in the Royal suite. I hoped and prayed that what I had learned of his daughter in bed was the truth and that I could trust her to play out her part of our comedy of surrender, even though she didn’t know the end of it, and my guess was a mile wide of the mark.
My first act when I got back to my room was to call General Rhana. My next was to have the concierge book me a limousine and a reliable driver. Then I telephoned Melville’s suite and, with old-country formality, asked permission to take his daughter out for the evening. He consented, with old-country grace.
So, in mutual desperation, we hit every night spot in town and I delivered her back to the Royal suite at four in the morning. If that meant anything to Mr. Marius Melville, it had to mean that I was family now – that I belonged to him, body, soul and breeches.
Our night’s carouse was a mistake. At seven I was wakened by a call from Melville’s masseur. We would leave at nine for the military airfield at Don Muang. He would be down at seven-thirty to help me to recovery. I told him to go to hell. I would recover in my own time. By eight I was regretting my refusal of a healing service. By nine, hidden behind dark glasses, primed with a litre of black coffee, bilious with resentment, I was downstairs waiting for Laura and Marius Melville.
As we climbed into the big limousine, Laura and her father sitting together in the rear seat, I perched on the jump seat, Laura made a theatrical virtue of fragility and announced: ‘My God, Martin, I’m sorry! Father’s just impossible! He insisted we both come along on this goddamned excursion. I don’t know why he needs us, for Christ’s sake! Half the Thai army and air force and Cabinet seem to be invited, not to mention the press… Three military jets. I’ve told him there’s no way you and I are going with his party. We’re going where the drinks are and we don’t have to talk politics or money.’
Melville listened to her tirade with amused tolerance. He seemed happier to have me as courting lover for his daughter than a sour-faced lawyer with a chip on his shoulder. However, he was too good a businessman to pass up a chance in the money-market.
‘…It
wouldn’t hurt, Martin, to plant the information that you’re in the banking business in London and that you have access to the Rotdrache trust. We’ve got a lot of our friends’ money in this project, but a London cachet never hurts – or a Swiss one, either. I’ll mention it to the Air Marshal and…’
I thought it was time to call a halt and let him know that I wasn’t yet wholly shackled to his interests.
‘You’re pushing me, Mario! Don’t do that! I took your daughter out on the town last night. I’m in no shape to talk money with the armed forces’ bank. That way, you and I will both get screwed. You carry on with your programme. Laura and I will tag along with the press and stay out of sight until we’ve recovered.’
He didn’t like it, but he bought it. After all, I had made the whole thing possible and, in spite of his irritation, he had put up with this pair of casualties. He even praised my usefulness.
‘…Everything fell into place the moment I told the Air Marshal he could have the company shares. I’d better tell you we’re selling them to him at market value and I’m picking up the difference myself. Even if we pay double the market price to Rhana, it’s a good deal… It also heals a long-standing breach between him and the Air Marshal. So we get ourselves two friends in the high echelons of the armed forces. Rhana’s been invited to come along today. He won’t be travelling with the Air Marshal and me, so perhaps you and Laura wouldn’t mind looking after him.’
To which Laura, not unreasonably, made answer that if we survived the run to the airport and an hour’s flight to Phuket and ninety degrees of heat and a Thai luncheon, we might – just might – be able to spare a thought for General Rhana.
Melville, flushed with yet another victory, laughed and patted her hand and urged me: ‘You have to work on her, Martin. She has so much to learn about this financial world of ours.’
Then he launched himself into a lecture on the Palace and its hierarchies and all the whirlpool currents that coursed about the throne, as the great-grandchildren of the Chulalongkorn dynasty still jockeyed for preferment and influence.
‘…This is the sort of thing you have to learn, Martin. Cassidy and I absorbed it with our mother’s milk. We never escape our past. It is mirrored in our present. It repeats itself in our future. Those who understand that will be the new oligarchs. Those who ignore it will be swept away in the wreckage…’
‘Father dear,’ said Laura desperately, ‘you are becoming a bore. It’s too early, and too hot. Be grateful that I’m your daughter and Martin is too polite to quarrel with you. Cassidy wouldn’t have stood this for two minutes.’
‘I’ve thought often,’ said Melville. ‘We should dedicate a memorial to Cassidy… Nothing grandiose. He would have hated that. A bust, perhaps – or, even better, a priapic figure with a real goat’s grin! – where people could come and leave their complaints and their satires as they do on Pasquino in Rome.’
For a moment, I lost control and let the truth slip out.
‘I’d be happy to subsidise the priapic figure. It would be the perfect answer for Charles Parnell Cassidy.’
It was admittedly an arcane joke for a smoggy morning in Bangkok and it hung in the air for a long moment. Laura got it first and burst into immoderate laughter. Melville caught it just before it fell to earth and was not amused. He told me so curtly.
‘Cassidy was my dear friend.’
‘He was my sworn enemy. That’s a difference you have to wear.’
Instantly the knife was out, thumb on the blade and striking upwards.
‘He was once my daughter’s lover also.’
‘Stop it, Father!’
‘Take it easy, Laura. I’ll deal with this.’ Suddenly I was talking like a husband and the illusion I had sought to create was almost complete. ‘I told you yesterday, Melville, never again to interfere in my private life. You’re doing it now. You’re putting horns on me before I’m even betrothed to your daughter. I won’t stand for it, not now, not ever.’
‘And what the hell do you think you can do about it, Mr. Martin Gregory?’
Very slowly, I reached into my jacket pocket, brought out the pencil, pointed it into the upholstery of the seat an inch from his head and pressed the release. There was a crack like a snapping pencil, a puff of vapour and a neat round hole appeared in the fabric. Laura gave a stifled cry. Melville’s thin body contracted in a spasm of fear. Behind his plate-glass screen, the driver heard nothing. Finally, Melville managed to find the words he needed to patch up his pride.
‘It seems I have not too much to teach you, Martin Gregory.’
‘It seems all you have to learn, Mr. Melville, are better manners.’
He did not answer me, but addressed the question to Laura: ‘Are you sure, my dear, you want this dangerous man? If you don’t, I can always dispose of him.’
‘I would like to keep you both,’ said Laura, and – God bless her heart! – the fiction was complete. Melville reached out and drew me into a paternal embrace. He kissed me on both cheeks and muttered what might have been an apology. I was happy he didn’t kiss me on the lips. It seemed my death was to be deferred, at least for a little while.
In the military area of the Don Muang airport, there were three executive jets drawn up on the tarmac. Inside the air-conditioned staff room, tea, coffee and iced drinks were being dispensed to a small army of dignitaries and guests. There were the Air Marshal and his staff, members of the Palace household, the chief architect, the chief engineer, the contractor, a couple of bankers, a gaggle of people with clipboards, the air crews, a small contingent of press and, slightly separate and a trifle forlorn, General Rhana and his aide-de-camp. He gave us a brief, formal greeting and then stood aside while we were presented to the others in descending order of magnitude.
Mindful of the role we had agreed to play, Laura and I behaved like lovers, anxious to be together. In spite of the protest I had made in the car, Melville still tried to manoeuvre me into discussions with the Air Marshal.
‘…Mr. Gregory is senior counsel to an important banking group in London. He could be a strong ally in our projects here…’
The Air Marshal was properly impressed and anxious to talk, but I begged off. I never liked to talk without an adequate briefing. Naturally, the project would merit serious consideration. Given Mr. Melville’s connection, it would be given priority in the discussion of my bank and of the Rotdrache trustees… Meantime, I was squiring a beautiful woman. We had both had a very late night. The Air Marshal would surely understand…
He did. He assured me he, too, had once been young and devoted to women. Now he was no longer young but still devoted. I laughed dutifully and he waved me away and devoted himself to serious talk with Melville and the Palace people.
Laura and I fell into talk with our pilot, a handsome young man, nephew of the Air Marshal, who had trained with the US Air Force and was obviously slated for a brilliant career under his uncle’s patronage. He showed us our route on the chart: down the river to the Gulf of Thailand, then south by east over Hua Hin, along the Burmese border to Ranong, then down the shore of the Andaman Sea to the island of Phuket. We would be there in an hour, drive to the site, have lunch with the air force and be back in Bangkok for cocktails and dinner.
It was just after ten-thirty when we were called for boarding; the Air Marshal, the Palace people and Marius Melville in the lead aircraft, the General and the minor functionaries in the second, Laura and I happily tucked in with the junior officers and the press men. Five minutes later we were airborne, climbing in wide spirals eastwards, in the wake of the Air Marshal’s plane, then levelling out for the sweep over the lower reaches of the river, the paddies and salt-pans of the delta, and the beaches of the eastern gulf.
The pilot did his best with a dutiful commentary on the route; but I dozed through most of it while Laura, with intermittent groans, nursed a canned Bloody Mary and a hangover headache. We were about two hundred miles south of Bangkok, just skirting the bulge of the Burma bo
rder, when it happened.
The pilot yelled and banked steeply to the left. We felt a single, sudden jolt as though we had hit an air pocket, then the aircraft levelled out and we saw far below us a fireball and a scatter of debris tumbling down towards the grey sea. We were all silent, listening to the hurried chatter from the open cockpit.
Then the pilot announced shakily, first in Thai and then in English: ‘Ladies and gentlemen. An accident has taken place. The Air Marshal’s plane has blown up in mid-air. There is nothing we can do. I am ordered to return to base.’
Laura gave a single choked cry and hid her face against my breast like a terrified animal. I held her there all the way back to Bangkok. I felt the silent sobs that racked her; I felt the pulse racing in her white throat; apart from that, I felt nothing.
18
‘Bite your tongue,’ said Arthur Rebus, in his crisp, no-nonsense fashion. ‘Comfort the lady and, for Christ’s sake, stop scratching your conscience or it will never get better. I’ll be with you at midnight tomorrow, Bangkok time. Send a car to meet me at the airport. Don’t bother to wait up. I’ll come to your room for breakfast…’
I was calling him from my bedroom. General Rhana was waiting in the sitting-room reading the headline reports of yesterday’s accident. Laura, heavily sedated, was asleep in the Royal suite, with the masseur and Miz Burton keeping vigil. Arthur Rebus was still talking.
‘Have you spoken with your wife?’
‘Yes. She’s home, as promised.’
‘How does she sound?’
‘Not hostile. Very subdued.’
‘That’s hopeful.’
‘I’m not sure I know how to handle it from here, Arthur.’
‘I’ve just told you. Bite your tongue and forget about rights and wrongs.’
‘Easy to say.’
‘If it works, you’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. If it doesn’t, call it quits and go live happily apart on Cassidy’s legacy. Don’t argue the case. You’ll end up with a mouthful of ashes… By the way, Loomis sends his love.’
