“I don’t want your money,” I told her. “But I can do this. I have to go to the Chumphon News office tomorrow. You said your doctor was at a conference at the Novotel?”
“Three days. Child development.”
“OK. I’ll take the Mighty X and drive down there after my meeting. I’ll ask around.”
Da put down her coffee cup and wrapped her meatless arms around me. It was like being hugged by scaffolding.
* * *
It was, in spite of everything, almost Christmas. We celebrate this festive season along with Chinese and Hmong new years, Ramadan (although I’m not sure I haven’t insulted half the world just by saying so), and the holiday of any other country that has a CD of awful songs to play on a loop. Our commercial fathers see them as opportunities to squeeze ever more money out of consumers. At our local Tesco there’s hardly a gap between “Jingle Bells” and “Wo Ai Ni (I Love You),” and the Thai Float Float Your Kratong song. Festivals promote spending. But there is something sad about the sour-faced checkout girls in their red and white pointed elf hats. One poor Muslim lass was even forced to wear one atop her hijab.
It must be said that a Tesco Christmas with its flashing Christmas tree lights and its tinsel is not for the benefit of the odd Englishman, German woman, or American couple who wander in there. Expats are few in Lang Suan and their spending power is negligible. In fact, I wouldn’t wonder if they’d prefer not to be reminded at all. The rather inebriated farang who stole into the store with a machete one afternoon and decapitated the jolly dancing Santa bears testimony to that theory.
Like Tesco, Christmas at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort was not a celebration of Jesus getting hammered to a cross and bleeding out. But I tend to believe that most of the people who celebrate the day barely give a thought to that aspect either. No, for us it was a chance to put our predecessors’ beautifully hand-crafted English sign out front:
CHRISTMAS IS A TIME OF CHAIR.
COME INSIDE AND HAVE A BEAR
I’d been tempted to fix it, but it got more responses by being wrong. Nothing delights tourists more than showing us up as ignoramuses. It really didn’t make much difference to our monsoon traffic, but the odd traveler did pull up in front and take a photo of the sign, maybe even pick up a can of Leo from Mair’s shop and pose beside it. And who knew? Maybe some day in the future the photo would go viral on the net and foreigners would come homing in on us from every corner of the planet. Right. Desperate, I know. But I’d run out of marketing ploys to get us back on our feet. I had more important things to do.
Whenever the kitchen, or the climate, or the fact we were here at all depressed me, I would always flip open the last surviving menu from the old regime. I would delight at the possibility of serving CRAP FRY RICE and ROAST LAMP to be followed by SUNDAY WIPING CREAM. But the crap and the lamp and the wiping cream did little to cheer me up as I gutted mackerel for dinner that day. I looked out at the lifeless Gulf. The times that scared me the most were these, the quiet days. When the wind was low and the waves were gentle and there was a lilac tinge to the sky. They were ominous days that hinted that the next monsoon was just beyond the horizon. A raptor was skimming across the wave tips. The hawks gave me heart. They migrated from northern China to Malaysia. But it was a long flight. They got bored. Probably suffered from deep-vein thrombosis in their wings. And a lot of them would say, “Bugger it,” and camp down behind our resort for the season. I loved watching them soar above the beach, swooping down to the surf for fish. I kept telling myself they were wise creatures and they would alert me if they sensed a hurricane coming. Our dogs, on the other paw, would be halfway to Phuket at the first hint of bad weather.
* * *
Over dinner, Gaew had told us about the Seniors’ bodybuilding tournament she’d recently attended in Hong Kong. I decided this was as good a time as any to relate my visit to Conrad Coralbank’s house. I left out the part where he’d desired me with a passion and just told them about the house and the answers he’d given. We were on dessert—ordained nun banana in coconut sauce—when I dropped the bombshell that his wife had left him.
“I’m not surprised,” said Mair. “I did notice a considerable age difference.”
According to Google, the pretty wife was the same age as me.
“I don’t see that age has anything to do with it,” said Gaew.
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” said Grandad. “You robbed the cradle yourself. Didn’t you?”
“Grandad!” said Arny, almost angrily.
“What?” Grandad stuck out his grasshopper chest. “You gonna defend your great aunt’s honor? Challenge me to a duel? You’re going out with a woman the same age as your own mother. Disgusting.”
“You can’t—” Arny began, but Gaew put a hand on his arm.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Let it go.”
“Don’t humor me,” said Grandad. “Defend yourselves.”
Mair, who could always be counted on to inadvertently deflect tension, came out with, “William seduced me in the classroom. On a desk, in fact.”
First there was silence, then Gaew laughed.
Grandad said, “Oh, don’t!”
“Who’s William?” I asked.
“He was good-looking, too,” said Mair. “An Irishman. Twenty years my senior. I’m not saying all British people are good-looking. Some are downright ugly. Goodness, I wouldn’t touch Mark Jagger with a pool cue, but your author reminds me a lot of William. He came to Chiang Mai University for a couple of years to teach literature.”
Grandad stood up in a huff, put his bowl in the sink, and left the kitchen.
“Go on,” said Gaew.
“There’s no ‘on,’” said Mair. “William had ginger hair and smelled of tobacco. To make matters worse, he wore corduroy. I could never let myself be seduced by a man in corduroy.”
We laughed.
“So there was no seduction in the classroom?” I asked.
“Not by William, heaven bless his soul,” said Mair. “But I knew it would shut somebody up. My father’s been very testy lately. I mean, more so than usual. I think something’s wrong.”
That was it with Mair. You never knew. One minute she’s putting together a chain of extension cords so she can vacuum the beach, the next she’s defusing volatile moments over dinner. I didn’t necessarily believe there had been nothing between her and William. She was sexually active in the sixties. You see? No Thai stereotypes in our family. Good Thai girls back then didn’t even let their fiancés have a peek until the honeymoon. I bet there were a lot of disappointed honeymooners. But Mair didn’t give a hoot. If her recent stream of consciousness was to be believed, she’d left behind a trail of drooling lovers.
“So I think you should make a play for him,” said Mair.
“William? He’s probably dead by now,” I countered.
“Conrad,” she said. “Successful, rich, good-looking, reached an age where he probably isn’t interested in sex, as long as you can keep him away from the Niagara. Sex with old men isn’t really anything to write home about. He’d be perfect for you.”
“It’s Viagra, and what makes you think he’d be interested in me?”
“Don’t be silly. Look at you,” she said. “Take him a pie. Englishmen like pies.”
“Where would I find a pie?”
“Bake one.”
“We don’t have an oven.”
“You need an oven?”
Like I said, she wasn’t spectacular in the kitchen.
“Bananas, then,” she said. “Bananas are international. Nobody’s ever disappointed with a banana. You know? I wondered where she’d gone, that wife of his. I haven’t seen her for, ooh, two weeks?”
“Do you mean two months?”
“I think I know the difference between a week and a month,” she huffed. “She was here on December the eleventh. The day they delivered the chicken manure. She had to step over the sacks to get in the shop.”
Of
course, there was no way Mair could confuse November and December. She’d get my name wrong four times a day. She’d phone our old distributor in Chiang Mai and complain that we hadn’t received goods from him that we hadn’t actually ordered for a year. Who knows when the bride of Coralbank was actually in our shop?
“Oh, manure, that reminds me,” she said. “I need you to take Gogo to see Dr. Somboon tomorrow.”
“Can’t. I’m going to Chumphon.”
“Not a problem. He has his livestock work during the day. He won’t open the clinic till five. You’ll be back by then.”
“What’s wrong with Gogo?”
“Nothing yet. I made an appointment to have her neutered.”
“Oh no. Absolutely not.”
“I suppose you’d sooner she pumps out puppies till her tits are dragging along the ground?”
“Neuter? Objection? No. Me take her? Not on your life.”
“Why not?”
“Dr. Somboon doesn’t have a nurse, Mair. He makes you stand at the operating table and hold the victim down just in case she wakes up in the middle and goes nuts when she sees her insides spread out on the table. I’m not going to be a witness to the end of a woman’s hopes and dreams of a happy family.”
“She’s a dog, darling.”
“Dogs can be symbolic. Let Gaew take her.”
“I’m off to Petchaburi for a seminar on steroid abuse tomorrow,” said Gaew.
“Arny?”
“Blood,” he said. “You know how I am.”
My brother was built like the Coliseum, but the slightest dribble of blood and you’d need a team of paramedics to bring him round.
“Jenny, my child,” said Mair. I assumed she was talking to me. “Gogo needs a liberationist. Someone to explain to her how she’s no longer obliged to be any dog’s doormat. Those little bristles on the doormat of indignity no longer have to prick her underbelly even if the word ‘Welcome’ is spelled out beneath her.”
“That dog hates me,” I reminded her.
“Then it’s your chance to bond. One female whose ovaries are in a pedal bin with one other whose reproductive system is unlikely to be put to use.”
“In that case, why don’t you take her?”
“I won’t be here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see your father.”
“Oh? Where is he?”
She looked out of the small kitchen window to a point where the indigo sea met the charcoal sky. There was one green light flickering out there. We all stood up at the window.
“That’s Captain Kow?” asked Arny.
“He’s out there all by himself,” said Gaew. “There isn’t another boat in sight.”
“Isn’t he brave?” said Mair. “No other fisherman dares go out in this season, but there he is in the sea putting rice on our table.”
“Mair,” I said. “There’s a very good reason why nobody else is out there. It’s the season when little shiplets get smashed to matchsticks. You get seasick in a pedal boat on a reservoir. You are not going out there.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“It’s all part of the process.”
“Of what?”
“Reconciliation.”
“Mair. You sold our home and dragged us kicking and screaming to this hellhole for him. Don’t you think you’ve done enough to prove your worth? How many tests is he going to put you through?”
“There are a lot of things you don’t understand. This was my idea. To live his life. See the world through his eyes. Understand the sea.”
Arny stepped in.
“Mair! That’s a boat. A squid boat. It doesn’t have a cabin. That’s really romantic under a starry sky with no surf, but this is the monsoon season. You’ll be exposed to the elements. They don’t have coastal patrols out there to rescue you.”
“Fear not, little Arthur,” she said. “I have a survival kit. It includes a waterproof groundsheet and an umbrella. I go prepared. Don’t worry about me.”
“And you’re planning on swimming out there?” I asked.
“I’ll be getting a ride from Nu’s husband,” she said. “He goes out every morning to check his squid traps.”
I decided it was probably for the best. A couple of hours on the turbulent sea and she’d be screaming to come back. Togetherness on a wooden boat in a hostile environment was a real test of compatibility. Everyone should have to do it.
UNPOSTED BLOG ENTRY 2
(found two weeks too late)
I’ve found another one. She has a family and people who’d miss her, but she’s adventurous. Nobody would be surprised if she got herself into trouble, vanished one weekend. And if it doesn’t work out, no problem. There are a lot of lonely women out there. She came under the pretense of an interview, but I could tell there was more. It wasn’t just a job. She was lonely. She needed somebody in her life. That’s why I agreed. I’m not sure I have a “type” exactly, but if I did, she wouldn’t be it. Too short. Too heavy. But I have a copy of her résumé. The Internet is very accommodating like that. It yielded up an essay of her more personal thoughts. I know her desires. I can play on them. That’s the modern age for you. Nobody is private anymore. Social networks are dark alleyways for people like me.
I can’t believe I waited this long to satisfy my urges. Now I know how frightfully simple it is I can’t wait to try this new me out. I’ll wait a few days before I call her. I don’t want to seem too keen. I’ll invite her for a meal and let her know she’s the lucky candidate. She can be my next. She’ll be so pleased she won’t see me for what I have become, until it’s too late.
C.C.
5.
Ladies Are Requested Not to Have Children in the Bar
(hotel sign)
E-MAIL FROM CLINT EASTWOOD TO JIMM JUREE
Dear Jimm and Sissi,
I’m sorry to have taken so long to reply to your many fascinating e-mails. Of course I’m not mad at you for hacking into our accounts here at Malpaso. It shows great initiative and drive. You were right about the jerk I hired to assess your earlier works, and I apologize for any embarrassment he may have caused you and your family.
You were right too about the great material you’ve been sending my way. The latest really topped the lot. Man, we all adored that last screenplay. I would just love to sit down with you both to discuss rights, financing, and perhaps a directorial collaboration.
I’ll be passing thru Thailand over the Christmas period, and it would be peachy if we could get together and discuss money. Perhaps you could give me an address so I can swing by your place when I’m there. Failing that, give me your phone numbers so I can give you a call and arrange a get-together.
I’m real excited about this project, and I have a strong feeling it’ll work out great for all of us. I look forward to meeting two really creative people such as yourselves.
Your pal,
Clint
“OK. It’s well written.”
“Thank you.”
“If you like your prose flowery and girly.”
Khun Boot, the proprietor and chief editor of the Chumphon News, found it impossible to give you a compliment without taking it away again. He had a complexion like an aerial photo I’d seen of Afghanistan. I’d never met him standing up. I wondered whether he’d lost his legs in a Weedwacker accident and they’d grafted a desk onto his lower torso.
“What can I say?” I said. “I’m a flowery girl.”
“I was expecting more grit from a journalist from Chiang Mai.”
Ooh, bitchy.
“You mean more than throwing axes half-naked at watermelons?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I mean. You lead with that, so we expect you’ll go on to … to more. But we’re halfway through it and you’re talking about books.”
“He’s a writer.”
“Our readers don’t give a shit about writers.”
“Then why send me to interview—”
“They want smut. They want confirmation that farang living in Thailand are all losers and maniacs and mafia. They don’t want nice guys being successful. Did you really not find anything sleazy about him? Abused wife? Love affair? Gay liaisons?”
I hadn’t mentioned the departed wife or the horny maid. If I had, I knew Khun Boot would have led with a good old traditional Thai headline: FAMOUS FARANG WRITER KICKS OUT WIFE FOR ILLEGAL BURMESE. And I’d get the blame for both the story and the break-up. In fact, I didn’t think Conrad’s sex life was any business of the populace of Chumphon. I would have been happier to hope there were enough sophisticated readers to warrant an actual literary piece. I’d obviously been aiming too high.
“It’s an okay start,” he said. “Now I want it more sexy. More decadent. Dig the dirt, Juree. You’re supposedly a crime reporter. Find some.”
“Is this just your sweet way of asking me to rewrite a perfectly good interview?” I asked.
“You’ve got it.”
“And you’ll be paying me for both versions?”
“I’ll pay you for the final version if you get it right. You’re a freelancer. You do what I tell you. I don’t need your big Chiang Mai attitude in my office. You do it right or you don’t do it at all. Get it?”
As I was walking out of the News’s, one-room house, I noticed the week’s headline on the fresh batch of newspapers. It was pure class. DRUG ADDICT HAS SEX WITH DEAD GRANDMOTHER. I realized I had a long way to go.
The drive to the coast helped me focus on the decline in journalism. It wouldn’t be long before the planet got its daily news in tiny boxes to one side of the celebrity scandal sites it subscribed to. Technology was making people even dumber. Moronicism was the new religion. As I drove out of the city, I repeated the mantra, “Keep it brief. Keep it vulgar.” Until I heard a look tung tune on Radio Chumphon that I recognized. I turned up the volume and sang along.
The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mystery (Jimm Juree Mysteries) Page 5
