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ALTHOUGH IT HADN’T seemed so at the time, Edward’s visit was just the tonic. Charles felt the blood shooting in his veins again. To mark the occasion he decided to eat away from the Brunton Taylorforth at Charlie’s, a little restaurant with green window frames, fronting the Bay of Phuket.
He stepped out of the taxi onto the road skirting the sea and filled his lungs. Although it was evening the place crackled with activity – a happy mixture of locals at work and tourists promenading. He sat outside the restaurant, ordered a cold beer and scanned the menu.
The waiter readied his notebook and pencil. “What can I get you, sir?”
“I’ll have the roast chicken with vanilla ice-cream to follow.”
“Another drink?”
“Not yet.”
The waiter made a loud full stop with his pencil, smiled and scooped up the menu. Charles took out a four-day old copy of The Times.
An hour later, he could hardly remember being this content. His hunger was satisfied, he felt ready for anything. The view was spectacular. Mangroves and casuarinas and the tingling sea and hazy mountains. Even the smell was invigorating: brine and spices.
He’d propose to Noonie next time they met, yes. He was in a strong position. On their last date, she told him she’d be thinking of him the whole time they were apart, which was clinching. And he was in love with her. She was demure and accommodating and, since she was top totty, she’d quash all the rubbish about him being queer. He could marry her and get on with his life.
He didn’t get back to the hotel until the sun was on its way under the horizon. When he alighted he noticed there was a subtle reduction in the colours of the sky. The shadows were long and the susurration of the sea was insistent and vexatious. Something was wrong.
When he turned to walk inside, he noticed a patch of darkness in the middle of the dark green lawn. He gasped. It.
Stooping now, and in rags. Again, he was certain it was Vivienne - although there was nothing identifiably hers there. It emanated an unbearable melancholy. He heard the bees covering its face, furious and shrill, as if their lives were in jeopardy. In its depths, where it had been black last time, there was something like a window. On its other side, Charles saw – himself?
Yes, oh God, it was him! On a long beach. Storm clouds raced across the sky. Long poles with triangular flags attached to them stood in the ground at intervals. Everything was grey and cheerless, even the sea. Wherever it was, he was quite alone.
He shook his head. He stepped backwards, half-expecting the thing to advance on him. He swivelled round, looking around for help. But there was no one. His throat was too dry to shout.
But when he turned back, the lawn looked as inviting as his own back garden in England. The colours of the sky had reinvigorated themselves into a panoply. The figure was nowhere to be seen.
He closed his eyes, took four deep breaths, shook his head and charged into the hotel. He sat down in the lounge, where he could be sure of being surrounded by people. He ordered a large whisky and sat panting next to the sea view.
He didn’t want to go back to his room, but three hours later when the staff began to clear up and clock off he realised he’d be alone soon anyway, whatever he did. He went upstairs, locked himself in his room and tried to say the Lord’s Prayer.
But he couldn’t remember the words.
The following afternoon, he was walking through Phuket Town centre. The street was crowded and the heat and the traffic fumes made progress difficult. He was trying to get to the street two blocks further on, where the guide book said an air-conditioned café called Mae Klang was.
He turned round – he didn’t know why - and there it was, head and shoulders above the crowd. It lowered itself. He stepped up his pace and rounded a corner, but he wasn’t going to shake it off, he knew that. He looked back, then walked on, then looked back again twice. It was never further or more distant than when he first glimpsed it.
He was out of breath when he reached Mae Klang. He sat down inside by the window and the thing stopped across the road, fixing him with a hatred he could almost taste. He moved to the back of the café, out of sight of the road. He didn’t want to be drawn onto that grey, lonely beach again, not for anything. He put his head between his knees in a last-ditch attempt stop himself being sick. The other customers looked at him with solicitous faces. He had to go to the men’s room to vomit.
After he came out, it took him an hour to finish his coffee. He couldn’t help noticing that since his first glimpse of the horror from his hotel window his feelings towards it had deepened. Then, he felt only terror. Now he felt a sort of gagging nausea, as if he was about to be forced into prolonged intimacy with it.
It disappeared two hours after it had arrived. He staggered outside and flagged down a taxi. He made it as far as his hotel bed before losing consciousness.
He awoke fully clothed at seven the next morning. The memory of what had happened flooded back and he had to be sick again. This time, though, he had nothing to vomit. He knelt over the toilet bowl, retching and weeping.
An hour later, he went into the bathroom for a shower. He shaved and changed into a black double-breasted suit. He was just in time for breakfast, and although he wasn’t up to his usual Full English he managed a croissant and half a grapefruit.
He’d known from the thing’s first appearance that only one person could save him from it. It was trying to stop him getting on with his life. It would only desist, if at all, when it realised it had failed. He finished his second cup of tea, gathered the shards of his sanity and set off to see David Blameworth at his office in Phuket Town. They could thrash out the detail of his marriage proposal face-to-face.
David Blameworth sat behind his desk in a red short-sleeved shirt with two buttons missing at the top. He wore a gold medallion and a baseball cap that said ‘No Worries’. He was on the phone. He hung up when Charles walked in and proffered a handshake and a seat.
“Is there a problem?” he said.
“I’ve decided I want to marry her.”
“Whoa.”
“Now, I know Elmer’s going to be disappointed, but I’m confident I can outbid him.”
“She seems to like you, I’ll say that,” David Blameworth said reluctantly.
“I know.”
“Go on, then. I’m listening.”
“I remember you telling me that, potentially, Leslie Swinter was willing to pay two hundred thousand US dollars. About a hundred thousand pounds. What if I tell you I’m willing to offer two hundred thousand pounds?”
“Sounds good. A bird in the hand and all that. But what if I was to tell you I’m a gambler? Elmer’s quite a wealthy man.”
“So what are you looking for?”
“Three hundred thousand and she’s all yours. I’ll tell Elmer to catch the next bus.”
Charles thought for a second then held out his right hand and stood up. “You have a deal.”
Half an hour later, they had completed the paperwork. All that remained was to get Noonie’s consent. Neither of them anticipated a problem. The wedding would take place sometime within the next fortnight. For all kinds of reasons it was best to get it over and done with as soon as possible.
“Now, listen,” David Blameworth said, “it’s imperative you don’t tell anyone how much you’ve paid me. If word gets out, the Kitkailarts will be swamped with begging letters and they’ll have to move out of their neighbourhood into a more secure property. Which means they’ll be very unhappy, since they’re perfectly content where they are. And they’ll be lonely because jealousy’s a powerful force and they’ll come up against it wherever they move on this island. Don’t tell anyone, understand? I’ll do the talking.”
“Understood.”
“And this is the way it works. I propose marriage on your behalf. You don’t propose marriage: I do. That’s the way I work. I speak the lingo, you don’t. That means if there’s a hitch I can clear it up immediately. Otherwise, communication – or lack of it - can scupper the whole thing. And of course, from their point of view, there’s the economics of it all. That sort of thing isn’t very romantic and it’s best discussed out of earshot of the would-be groom. Your job is to act as if nothing’s happened. Under no circumstances tell Noonie you’re proposing. Let me do that. A time to be born a time to die, a time to kill a time to heal, comprendez?.”
“When will I find out if she’s said yes?”
“Of course she’ll say yes. Let’s see. She gets back from work on Friday evening, you say? Let’s say Saturday or Sunday then.”
“Should I see her between now and then, do you think? I mean, I was thinking of asking her out on Friday evening. But I might give something away.”
David Blameworth laughed. “Probably not, then.”
“Is there anything else I need to do?”
“No. I’ll contact you at the hotel if there’s any sort of hitch. If you don’t hear from me, assume there isn’t ... Er, is there something the matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep looking over your shoulder. Are you expecting someone? This isn’t a frame-up, is it?”
Charles frowned. “No, absolutely not. Sorry, go on.”
“No news is good news, yes? I’ll start making arrangements for the wedding today. You just relax and enjoy your holiday.”
They shook hands again. David Blameworth saw Charles to the door and out onto the street. He closed the door and threw himself down into his chair. All the exhilaration he’d managed to suppress while Charles was in the office rushed to the surface and he began to shake. He went to his desk, took out a half empty bottle of Brandy and finished it. Then he walked up and down to work off some of the adrenalin.
He’d just pulled off the deal of the century. He had once heard of an American millionaire paying five million dollars to marry a former Miss Thailand, but that was bizarre and probably unrepeatable. Between five hundred and twenty thousand pounds was the norm. Thirty was Rolls-Royce, and although he told himself that he’d have snubbed even forty for Noonie, he’d never been that confident of getting more. Three hundred thousand was beyond his wildest imaginings. Twenty-one million Bahts in a country where just five hundred Bahts was a decent monthly wage.
There was no possibility of Noonie turning him down. Not with what he’d got planned for her.
Over the last few years, he’d been a frequent visitor at the Kitkailarts’ house and he’d got to know Tasanee well. As she’d plied him with tea and sat with her chin in her hands or picking fluff off the sofa, he’d found out about her hopes for Noonie, what her neighbours were doing this week, her ailments past and present. Her confidences had ranged wide enough to include her sons, in Bangkok. She read extracts from their fortnightly letters to him and fretted. About a week ago, when she’d left the room to fetch some water from the yard, he took one of the letters – an older one she wouldn’t miss - and thrust it into his pocket.
He spread it out on his desk now, took a blank piece of A4 from the printer tray and tried to imitate the handwriting. It was crabbed and inconsistent, but after thirty minutes he started to get the measure of it. After an hour, he felt confident enough to begin.
Dear Honoured Mother,
Things have taken a very bad turn for the worse this week ...
