Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach jj-2

by Colin Cotterill

  "Mair," I said, "we had seven policemen here, and you had a kidnapped monkey in your room."

  "I didn't kidnap her. I rescued her. And why should the police search my room? We were the victims, weren't we?"

  "Why didn't you tell us?" I asked.

  "I didn't think you'd let me keep her in the room. But I was sure it couldn't have been much of a secret. She was causing such a fuss. You certainly heard the noise."

  "Yes, but I thought it was…"

  "What?"

  "Never mind."

  "What are you planning to do with it?" asked Grandad.

  "There's a gibbon rehabilitation project in Phuket," she said. "I was thinking of sending her over there."

  Grandad Jah stood, cracked a few bones, and walked over to get a closer look at the monkey, who bared her teeth at him. Mair monkey-whispered and the animal melted back onto her lap. I imagined her doing the same to me when I was a snarling two-year-old.

  "One," said Grandad, "this isn't a gibbon. It's a macaque. And two, Phuket's six hours away. You going to put it on the bus?"

  "I haven't been in a hurry to think it through, Father," she said. "She still hasn't recovered, and I'm not going to send her anywhere till she's better. Now stop picking on me."

  I left my mother and grandfather to it. There really was nothing I could do. We had a monkey. And I secretly cursed that monkey for stimulating my libido under false pretenses. But an incontrovertible process had begun that first headboard-clattering night and now I had an itch to scratch. There was only one man in Maprao who came even vaguely close to my "type." I'd been married for three years to a man who wasn't my "type" at all. I'd dated a platoon of men who weren't my "type." And I'd arrived at the conclusion that perhaps my "type" and my "realistic options" were so far removed I might have to compromise.

  Ed the grass man was leading the field in my compromise chart. He was younger than me, which perhaps played on some fantasy I'd never admit to. He had dreamy chocolate eyes and…No, look. I don't aspire to writing romance fiction. Forget what the tall slim stack of muscle looked like. I was desperate. He was divorced. And it wasn't a coincidence that it had been Ed the grass man there with me in my erotic dream. So, why not? As I rode in search of him, it hadn't occurred to me how totally against character and culture and common sense this potential seduction was. I was being led by a force much greater than my brain. I'd taken the bicycle in search of Ed. I figured all that pedaling might calm my ardor by the time I found him. It wouldn't do to appear too needy. Lust may have addled my mind, but it hadn't damaged my common sense. I had a condom in my bag. It made me feel terribly naughty. This would be an encounter never to be forgotten but not one to be remembered every nappy-changing, school-uniform-darning, prison-visiting day for the rest of my life.

  I missed Ed at his house, at the boatyard, and at the orchard whose cut grass bore his precisely manicured signature. But I found him at an empty building site, where he was assembling a fitted wardrobe. He was certainly a versatile young man. The bricklayers and electricians and cement Tenderers had completed their tasks, leaving Ed to finish the woodwork himself. Destiny had placed him here in front of me in a future bedroom.

  "Ed?" I said, and in my mind's eye we crashed into one another, locked in a passionate embrace. Our lips mashing one against the other. He looked up from his chiseling and wiped sweat from his eyes.

  "Jimm?"

  Everything was going so well. I sat on a metal grinder carry-case and crossed my legs. I was wearing shorts. Nothing erotic, but he was a man. Just the sight of skin drove them insane.

  "What do you want?" he asked.

  "Just to visit," I said.

  "How did you know I was here?"

  "I asked at the boat dock. They laughed mischievously when they told me. Honestly. Men."

  There was a long pause.

  "That's a very nice fitted wardrobe," I said. "I had no idea you were so good with your hands."

  He nodded.

  "Do you want to take a break?" I asked.

  "I don't know. I have to get these frames done by four. They're bringing in mirrored doors."

  "Just a quick break," I said, and licked my top sensual lip. "A break…to remember."

  He put down his chisel at last.

  "Remember what?"

  "Remember the time, not so long ago, when you came to me with a proposal."

  "Is this about when I almost asked you out?"

  "Almost, yes. Rudely interrupted by me. You see? It was too soon, Ed. I didn't know you then. Ha, I barely knew myself."

  "It was seven weeks ago."

  "Time enough for me to let down my defenses. It was so obvious you found me attractive. I wasn't ready then. But, Ed…"

  "What?"

  "I'm ready now."

  "What for?"

  "For you."

  I reached out my hands to him. It was the moment. Our fingers would touch and the electricity would course through us. I could already feel a tingle.

  He just stood there.

  "I'm engaged," he said.

  "What?"

  My hands dropped to my sides.

  "I found somebody. We're engaged."

  The cement floor beneath my feet gave way, and I dropped fifteen floors to the nuclear bunker. I landed on the wiring board of the strategic defense system and started a war.

  "What?"

  "You've said that already."

  "I know, but. .. not even two months ago you were suffering because your wife ran off with a glazier and you wanted me."

  "And you said no."

  "You give up that easily? How can you be so…indiscriminate?"

  "I didn't want to be alone."

  "So you ask everyone on your list till you get a yes?"

  "It's a bit more complicated but, yeah, something like that. But thanks for thinking of me."

  "Thanks for…?"

  I burned off a lot of frustration on my pedaled escape from that unfinished house but not nearly enough to prevent a slideshow of Hong Kong and Taiwanese male movie stars flickering in front of my eyes. I even looked sideways at an elderly farmer with no shirt who was tugging his cow beside the road. I might have even stopped and talked to him if my cell phone hadn't sent out a chorus of "Mamma Mia." I stopped the bike under a tree and looked at the screen. It was Sissi.

  "You not left yet?" I asked.

  "Jimm, listen. Whatever you do, don't open that packet of trial antidepressants I sent you."

  I was exactly in the mood for the teens at the Pak Nam Internet shop. They could obviously tell I'd have gladly bumped them on the head with my personal mouse if anyone had attempted to stop me getting on to my regular computer. Even the craggy-faced shop owner desisted from his preachy "We do have a queuing system here, you know?" The last time he'd tried it I threatened to call the school board and tell them about all the young boys here who spent their homework time surfing for big-eye-contact-lens Japanese idols in bikinis. That had shut him up. Just about anything I needed a computer for would have been more important than that. And this evening I had two very important reasons for getting online.

  First, I sent an e-mail to my friend Alb in Bangkok. He ran a sort of unofficial Australian news agency. He made big bucks out of those scandalous Aussie celebrities arrested in Thai resorts. He specialized in drug orgies, but he had a nose for all kinds of sin. I'd first met him when we were both investigating a pop singer pedophile holed up in a five-star hotel in Chiang Mai. We staked him out together and kept in touch as we followed the subsequent trial and suicide. We were good friends.

  Alb, I wrote. What do you know about slave ships in the Gulf of Thailand?

  I pressed SEND. He was an e-mail addict. Even if he wasn't at his desk, he'd have his iPhone set on Taser buzz. He kept it in a small pouch hanging from his belt, like a sporran, so I knew there was something kinky about it. While I waited for an answer I Googled FLIBANSERIN. I got eighty thousand results almost immediately. The first site I clicked had t
he headline VIAGRA FOR WOMEN. I said "shit" eleven times in English, but the word was obviously on the high school vocab list because everyone looked at me. I read on.

  AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF TESTS THE BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CORPORATION HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED THAT ITS WIDELY TOUTED ANTIDEPRESSANT FLIBANSERIN HAD NO ANTIDEPRESSANT QUALITIES WHATSOEVER. THEIR CHEMISTS MADE SOME SLIGHT ALTERATIONS AND SENT THE DRUG FLIBANSERIN II FOR A SECOND ROUND OF TRIALS. BUT UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEG-

  Alb had answered. He could wait.

  UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEGAN TO FILTER IN FROM WOMEN WHO'D TRI-ALED FLIBANSERIN I. THEY WERE CLAIMING THAT SINCE THEY STARTED TO TAKE THE DRUG REGULARLY THEY HAD DEVELOPED RAVENOUS SEXUAL APPETITES.

  "Oh my word."

  WOMEN AS OLD AS 76 WERE…

  I couldn't read any more. I was so embarrassed. I was a love junky. I'd thrown myself at a gay policeman, a happily married man, and just a few hours earlier I'd forced myself on a grass cutter. The story would have made the rounds of the entire district by now. They'd write things about me on the walls of public toilets. Fathers would bring their teen-aged sons around for their first experience. I'd end up an old hag in mesh stockings and a push-up bra beckoning passing drivers into the resort. What had I done?

  I clicked Alb.

  Lots, he wrote. What do you want to know specifically?

  I typed Everything and sent it.

  I looked around the Internet shop. Some of the boys looked away embarrassed. They'd heard. I was dirty laundry.

  "We saw the harlot in the Internet shop last night," they'd tell the teacher in the morning.

  Alb replied. We should chat.

  And we chatted on Gmail for half an hour. Alb had heard all the same rumors. On the Andaman coast out west he said there was indisputable evidence of kidnappings and failure to pay salaries. There was an island, he said, that a bunch of Burmese fishermen had escaped to. They'd been there six months. Nobody knew what to do with them. They didn't have papers. They were illegal aliens. The Burmese junta wasn't about to send a pleasure boat to pick them up. Nobody else wanted to take responsibility. Now, if they were Swedish, he wrote, then we'd have a story. But what you've got is disposables. It's like the big tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004. If it had just swallowed up Thais and Bangladeshis, there'd have been a couple of days of press in the West. "100,000? How tragic. Anyone know what the cricket score is?" But that same tsunami hit five-star resorts and took out German sportsmen and blond fashion models and Italian executives. And there was outrage. Millions of dollars were donated. It could have been us, they cried. Someone tried to sue God.

  So, fifty Burmese on an island? Slaves in deep-sea vessels? Summary killings of little brown men with no culture or religion to relate to? Collateral damage in the harsh world of the peasant, my dear. Investigating it would be expensive and what do you end up with? Couple of columns in The Age that eighty percent of readers skim over on their way to the comics. No, Jimm. We get a lot of tip-offs but, quite frankly, nobody gives a toss.

  A twelve-year-old with fake, pink mouth braces-which had mysteriously become all the rage with teens-leaned over me and flashed his queue number. I was so upset that I let him have my seat. Now this was actual depression and I didn't even have anything anti to take. And perhaps the worst part of this whole affair was that the effects of Viagra-fem were getting stronger. Just how long would I have to wait for it to wear off? Until it did, no man was safe.

  We had two new guests for dinner that night. The sea level had dropped sufficiently for re-entry into the kitchen, so I made spaghetti seafood. One of our bamboo picnic tables had been washed away. Not far away. We could see it rocking back and forth some way out, like one of Robinson Crusoe's failed escape attempts. Mair refused to allow Arny to swim out to retrieve it. She said losing another nephew to drowning would be too much to bear. The other four tables were still where we'd left them. From table two there was a clear view of the sunken latrine, nose down in the sand. Grandad Jah had turned a spotlight onto it, and the effect was every bit as spectacular as Pak Nam's own concrete battleship. The night was calm. The sky was starry. The beach garbage looked almost picturesque in the shadows.

  Joining us all the way from Hong Kong was Amy's fiancee, Gaew. If you were to project a slide of Miss Thailand World onto a brick kiln, that's what Gaew looked like. The hurricanes had yet to offer up a wind that would blow her off her feet. But we all loved her bubbly personality and sense of humor, especially my mother. And Gaew seemed every bit as pleased to see Mair as she was to be reunited with Arny. My brother grinned like a lovesick donkey at everything she said. Noy picked up on this interaction and remained subdued all evening. Gaew picked up on Noy's subjugation, added to it the girl's innocent beauty and youth, and decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to hold my brother's hand all night and feed him fried squid with a fork.

  Our other guest that night was Captain Waew, retired from Surat Thani police force. He was as round as Grandad Jah was anorexic, as short as me, and worryingly twitchy. He had so many tics you'd doubt he could ever be truly still. He ate sparingly, spoke frugally, and smiled at everything. He was the reinforcements called in by my grandfather. I felt so much better to see he had back-up.

  The grenade attack on our freezer had destroyed our frozen fish and most of our beer supply. The bottles had shattered, but the cans had merely been blasted across the room. The beer that accompanied our supermarket seafood therefore was in Salvador Dali cans, which exploded foam at every opening. After an hour we all stank of Leo. By then we hardly noticed the arrival of the subtle black curtain of clouds being pulled across our sky. While everyone else was getting plastered, I called on my superhuman ability to be unaffected by alcohol when a good story was at stake.

  With bladders filling fast and their owners running off to rooms to empty them, I worked my way around the table like a clever Pac-Man, sliding into vacant slots until I found myself beside my prey-Noy.

  "Are you having a good time?" I asked.

  "They seem so happy," she said, staring at Arny and Gaew, her words slurred. She was pickled.

  "Love. What can I say? Blind as a beefburger."

  She didn't laugh.

  "She's…"

  "Older than your mother?"

  "Yes."

  Noy was swaying. I don't know how many abstract beer cans she'd been through, but I was certain she was just about to say things she'd regret. I leaned into her ear.

  "Tell the truth, I'd like to see him with someone younger," I said. "But she's so worldly. She's been everywhere. Can you believe she studied in America?"

  That was a lie. I was fond of lies.

  "Well, so did I," slurred Noy.

  Bingo.

  "You don't say? He loves women with overseas experience."

  "I have it," she said. "I have overthere experience. And what an experience. You know? You know what I was?"

  Drunk was what she was. About to pass out, I'd bet. I needed a few more clues before I lost her completely.

  "What were you?" I asked.

  "I was…" She looked around, not focusing on anything or anyone-perhaps only the memory.

  "I was a rental."

  "Like Hertz?"

  "Excac…ex…actly like Hertz. Driven into the ground, dented and dumped. Used. That was me."

  She put her arm around me and belched.

  "Sorry," she said.

  "No problem."

  "All used up," she sang. She was fading now. I had twenty seconds left at the most before her lights went out. "And what…what would they have done to me after the gas tank was empty? Put me in the scrap metal, that's what. So, Jimm, that's why."

  "Why what?"

  Mamanoy had seen her girl talking to me and was on her way over to us.

  "Why what what?" Noy asked.

  "No, you said, 'That's why.' "

  "Right. That's why." She got clumsily to her feet and raised a fist. "That's why I stood up to them. Why I told them it wasn't right. It shoul…should have
been me."

  Then in English she said, "The monitor lizard knew nothing."

  Her mother caught her just before she collapsed.

  "She isn't very good with alcohol," said Mamanoy. "Talks absolute rubbish after the slightest amount of beer. I'd better get her back to the room."

  Ex-Captain Waew saw an opportunity to manhandle a nubile twenty-four-year-old and propped up one side of Noy while her mother took the other. I watched them fade into the shadows.

  "Well, how confusing was that?" I asked myself. I couldn't think. Beer made my brain stodgy. If I'd been drinking Chilean red, I would have had an insight by now. Casa de Easter might give me brimstone hangovers, but it did wonders for my imagination. Noy had told me something important, but I didn't know what.

  When the captain returned from Noy's cabin, he joined Grandad Jah at another table and I knew they were up to no good. I wasn't having it. I went over to them and squeezed in between the old fellows.

  "Jimm," said Grandad, "go and play somewhere else. This is grown-up talk."

  He sometimes forgot I'd grown up too.

  "OK, old policemen," I said. "Here's the deal."

  "Jimm!" snarled Grandad.

  I didn't want to break Grandad's face in front of his colleague, but I had a lot on my plate, not least of which was the feel of Captain Waew's strong forearm against my side. Just how evil were those pills?

  "I know what you two are up to," I said.

  "Jimm, do not interfere where you aren't wanted," said Grandad.

  "If you do anything to the rat brothers, I'm going straight to the real police. I'll tell them everything, including the gun."

  Grandad Jah looked at his friend apologetically.

  "She's young," he said.

  "I may be young," I agreed, "but I'm not stupid. I know why your co-avenger is here. And I need your combined expertise on a much bigger case. I want to know whose head that was on our beach. It's possible he was beheaded by slavers, and they got away with it. They've probably been getting away with it time and time again. I want you to focus your minds on something more important than revenge against a couple of lowlifes. I know you aren't that fond of the Burmese, but they're people. They have rights. And they believe nobody cares about them here in Thailand. That's because nobody does care about them. I don't think that's fair. I want justice for our day laborers. But I tell you what. The rats are connected to all this somehow. And once we've uncovered the kingpins, you can do whatever you like with them. Or perhaps you aren't up for a large-scale operation."