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‘BAY VIEW’ FACED THE sea from a hillside half a mile north of Sapam Bay. It was stuccoed white with a veranda supported by thick timbers. Inside, the waxed wooden floors were overlooked by Thai and English landscapes, framed photos of Lek and Mark and a widescreen TV. A dining table with antique chairs dominated one half of the living room. The other was occupied by a sofa, two armchairs and a coffee table. Georgina sat on the sofa while Mark paced the kitchen multi-tasking. A pine staircase led to the first floor where Lek was showering.
“I’m warning you,” she shouted, “if it’s stuck to the pan when I get out of the shower I’m leaving you.”
“You should have gone in the shower an hour ago,” Mark replied. “They’ll be here in a minute. I can’t watch rice and hunt for candles at the same time.”
“I told you. They’re in the drawer.”
“Where in the drawer? I can’t see them.”
“At the back. At the back!”
Georgina got up. “I’ll look after the rice.”
“Sit down,” Mark and Lek said together.
“I want to help.”
“Hit Mark over the head, then.”
“Give Lek a towel then and tell her to get a bloody move on.”
“I’m pregnant, you heartless bastard.”
“The rice is proceeding according to plan,” Georgina said. “Shall I open the wine?”
“That’s Mark’s job.”
“I’ve opened it already,” Mark said.
Georgina stirred while Mark took the candles to the dining room table. Lek entered the kitchen wrapped in two towels. She had wet feet and red cheeks.
“Are you okay helping?” she asked Georgina.
“I’m fine.”
“The rest of the stuff’s in the Creuset, in the top oven.” She removed the towel from her head, massaged her hair with it and went upstairs. A hairdryer came on then went off. She came downstairs again. “Scissors?” she said to Mark.
“Usual place. I haven’t had them.”
“So Edward’s gone out?” Georgina said.
“We sent him out,” Lek said, taking the scissors from the drawer. “We couldn’t talk to you about our top-secret plans while he was sitting there. We sent him down to the shops for some groceries.”
“And did he go?” Georgina asked.
“Well, he’s not here now,” Mark replied, looking around him.
“I mean: just like that? Without demur?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“He’s going to make someone a wonderful husband.”
“It’s nothing to do with that,” Mark said. “He’s just very, very scared of Lek. We both are.” He picked up the newspaper. Lek ran back upstairs.
“Mark?” she shouted.
He put the newspaper down. “What?”
“Is Edward’s old guy friend coming?”
“He said no. His ‘old-guy friend’ has some business to take care of and he’s promised not to interrupt him.”
“Good.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“Who is this ‘old guy friend’?” Georgina asked.
Mark picked up the newspaper again. “I don’t know. Someone who helped Edward set up in business a couple of years ago. Disappeared from England a few weeks ago and turned up here. I forget the details. Never actually met him.”
“I didn’t mean that I don’t like old guys,” Lek shouted.
“You like me,” Georgina said.
“I just think it’s going to be better if Edward and Noonie are – you know – on their own.”
“With just us three to watch their every move,” Mark said.
“Exactly. Listen, Mark. Let’s just go over this again, shall we?”
Mark sighed. “I take Edward out onto the veranda and apologise for leaving him ‘looking after the equipment’ for four nights. If he’s still bitter - ”
“Well, if he’s still bitter, we might as well chuck him out, and Noonie, and eat the bloody duck ourselves. We’re only doing this to bring them together. If he doesn’t like her – if he hasn’t even made the bloody effort - ”
“Easy, Lek.”
Georgina switched the gas down. “Do you think it’s reasonable to expect him to have fallen in love with her after just four nights?”
“I’ve known Edward fall in love after just one hour,” Lek replied.
“It’s not the falling in love part that’s likely to be the problem,” Mark said. “It’s the trusting her. Edward tends to assume people are unscrupulous. I’ve known him fall in love with a few girls and crash in flames. Always a self-fulfilling prophecy. He liked them but didn’t rate them as people.”
“It was his own stupid fault,” Lek said. “We’re hoping he’s grown up a bit since then. I’m going to be looking at their eyes.”
“Pardon?” Georgina said.
“I’ve got this special power, you see, Georgina, like a superhero. I can tell, just by looking at someone when they’re looking at someone else, whether they’re in love with them.”
Georgina sat down on the sofa and looked at Mark. “Am I in love ... with Mark?”
“I don’t know, let’s see.” She put her face next to Georgina’s eyes, then tried to climb on her stomach for a better look. Georgina yelped. “That’ll teach you not to mess around with the husband of a pregnant superhero,” she said, swiping her palms together.
There was a knock at the front door. Mark opened it. Edward entered in a shirt and blue shorts, clutching a cream carrier bag. “I got everything,” he said. “Except refried beans. I can’t speak Thai and believe it or not there’s nothing about refried beans in my phrase book.”
“No need to be sarky,” Mark said, looking into the bag. “It’s not like we sent you on a wild goose chase or anything. We really needed those refried beans.”
“Well, sorry. Go and live in Mexico.”
“Hi, Edward,” shouted Lek, from upstairs. “This is Georgina Chappel, Georgina this is Edward Grant. Edward: Georgina lives on the other side of the island, she’s been our best, best friend since we first arrived here. She’s in charge of the local Aung San Suu Kyi Solidarity committee and the Free Tibet society. Georgina: Edward went to university with Mark and I. He and Mark vied ruthlessly for my affections over the course of several years. In the end, it came down to the toss of a coin and I married Mark. But I still love both of them. Guests: shake hands.”
“Er – where’s Lek’s voice coming from?” Edward asked.
Mark rolled his eyes.
“Pleased to meet you, Edward,” Georgina said.
“Very pleased also,” Edward said.
Lek’s head appeared at the top of the landing.
“Edward, come upstairs and get smartened up. I’m not having Noonie see you like that. Go to your room now.”
Edward made to reply then shook his head. He went upstairs.
“Mark, have you checked the rice lately?”
“Nag, nag, nag.”
Georgina switched the gas to nought. “I’ve just turned it off.”
“Put the pan lid on it. I don’t want it drying out.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Georgina said.
“I heard that, Georgina,” Lek said. “And I will make you pay for it.”
Five minutes later Noonie stepped into the house wearing the dress and heels she’d worn for her first meeting with Charles and carrying a bottle of white wine. Her hair was tied with a red ribbon just above the nape of her neck. She looked like a visitor from a world where everything was washed and polished and given a trophy before being raised on a golden pedestal.
Mark kissed her on the cheek and took the wine. “You shouldn’t have,” he said. “Lek’s an alcoholic.”
“You look absolutely gorgeous,” Georgina said. “Lek isn’t an alcoholic. That’s Mark’s idea of a joke.”
“We’re so glad you could make it,” Mark said. “I gather you and Georgina already know each other.”
“Would you like me to take my shoes off?” Noonie asked. “I mean, for the wooden floors.”
Lek came downstairs. Her hair was curled and she wore a red dress with a black belt. She hugged and kissed Noonie as if they were old friends.
“Don’t take your shoes off unless you want to,” she said. “I’m wearing mine. If men get the idea that you’re not as tall as them they tend to get ideas. We’ll put some more rugs down. Where’s Edward?”
“You sent him to his room, remember?”
“Edward!”
Edward appeared on the landing in an evening suit. He folded his hands behind his back and came downstairs. He bowed slightly to Noonie. “Hello again,” he said. “What a nice dress.”
“Mark, go to your room and put your evening suit on,” Lek said. “I’m not having you looking like a rag and bone man in front of the guests. Go.”
“I washed and ironed it especially,” Noonie said. “What a nice tuxedo.”
“I removed it from mothballs especially and sprayed it with Fabrico.”
“What’s Fabrico?”
“A beta-cyclodextrin solution mixed with aromatic compounds for a perfumed effect.”
“Let’s all sit down, and talk, shall we?” said Lek. “Mark! Mark!”
“What do you want now?” shouted Mark, from upstairs.
“Will you take Edward out onto the veranda and teach him a lesson? He’s starting to talk about science!”
“Will do,” came Mark’s voice.
Half an hour later, Mark and Lek met up in the kitchen to serve the meal. Lek put her gloves on and opened the oven door. A blast of hot air hit her and she stepped back. Mark took a set of plates out of the cupboard.
“He’s absolutely besotted,” Lek said. “It’s written all over him. As for her ... I’m not so sure. I’m not sure at all.”
“She’s the same with him as he is with her, isn’t she?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You’re the expert.”
“She can play him well enough,” Lek said. “He doesn’t faze her. That’s pretty much an achievement in itself. And she obviously likes him. But I can’t say any more than that. Not with confidence.”
“Shame.”
“It’s not over yet. Women are more mature than men. We like to think out our options. It’s nice that a man’s got a pretty face and a good body, but it’s never going to be clinching. Anyway, maybe she’s just a slow-burner. Which would be a good thing. Slow burn last long, Confucius he say. Georgina adores him. That crazy boffin act really works for him. I know it’s an affectation but it’s quite cute that he’s chosen that particular affectation, not, say, Mr Smarmy, like most men. What did he say on the veranda?”
“He said, in retrospect he was pleased I’d left him at the school.”
“Those were his actual words?”
“Actual words.”
“High five.”
They slapped palms and kissed. Lek took the meat from the oven. Mark got the cutlery.
Lek brought out twenty more candles and dotted them around the room, then put an opera CD on low. Everyone sat down. A silver candelabra stood in the middle of the table on a white tablecloth surrounded by three bottles of wine, five large glasses and the food. Maria Callas vied with the wind outside. Mark carved the duck in long strokes and served it with the vegetables. Lek dimmed the lights.
“We put this CD on especially or you, Edward,” she said.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
We don’t normally listen to opera, but Edward’s been trying to get us into it for years. Mark and I are resolutely plebeian.”
“There’s nothing plebeian about either of you,” Edward said. “I wasn’t trying to convert you. I’m just an unimaginative present-buyer.”
Mark leaned forward. “We’re more Stone Roses and Modern Dog than Lesley Garrett and Cecilia Bartoli.”
“I used to go to the opera, years ago,” Georgina said.
Noonie put her fork down. “Edward, I thought you said you didn’t have any hobbies.”
“What?” Georgina said.
Edward sipped his wine and looked at his food. “Okay, it’s true. A few days ago, Noonie asked me if I had any hobbies and I said no.”
“Well you’ve been found out, my friend,” Mark said.
“Not so fast. I don’t see opera as a hobby.”
“What is it then?” Mark said.
“When my parents died, they left me their CD collection. A hundred or so operas. I like listening to them. That’s it.”
Mark nodded. “’That’s it’, yes. Listening to opera is your hobby.”
“Listening to something isn’t a hobby,” Edward said.
“Yes, it is,” Mark said.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, Edward, it is.”
“No, Mark, it isn’t.”
Lek turned to Georgina then to Noonie and lowered her voice. “Mark and Edward can keep on like this all night. If either of you ever have a dinner party, be sure to sit them together. They’re most entertaining. It’s okay, they’ll run upstairs and have sex in a minute.”
Edward ignored her. “So listening to rock, that’s your hobby is it? Yours and Lek’s?”
“That’s right,” Mark said.
Lek hooted. “Sorry you’re on your own, sweetie. Win, or don’t come home.”
“Mine then,” Mark said.
“Bit passive, wouldn’t you say?”
“So what?”
“It’s like saying sleeping’s your hobby,” Edward said.
Mark scoffed. “It’s nothing like saying sleeping’s your hobby.”
“Surely opera’s different to sleeping, Edward?” Georgina said. “You ‘go to’ the opera. Active. You don’t just fall into it.”
“Mistaken premise,” Edward replied.
“You don’t go to the opera?” Lek said.
“No, my parents used to take me, but I haven’t been since they died.”
“I was hoping you might take me one day,” she said.
“I’ll take you if that’s what you want,” Mark said.
“I want to go with an expert,” Lek told him. “No disrespect. I’d like us both to go. You need educating as much as I do, Mark.”
“What?” Mark said.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “U2 and Caravan and that stuff’s pretty damn cool, but we ain’t gettin’ no younger.”
“So you want to go to the opera, eh?” Mark said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
She smiled. “I was keeping it till your birthday. Surprise you.”
“I can’t wait,” he said.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t be very good company,” Edward said.
Lek laughed. “Oh my, the old, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ excuse.”
“Surely going to the opera’s an indispensable dimension of it?” Georgina said.
“So people say,” Edward replied. “I disagree.”
Mark pointed his fork at Edward. “Hang on, I’m beginning to see where this is headed.”
“Mark’s about to have one of his Doc Manhattan moments,” Edward said.
“Tell us, Edward. Why don’t you go to the opera?” Mark asked.
Edward sighed. He looked round at everyone. “Because I can’t stand the people.”
Georgina, Noonie and Lek laughed and clapped. Edward looked as if he’d been cornered and caned.
“I love you, man,” Mark said. “Let’s go upstairs and have sex.” He raised his glass. Edward recovered then chinked it.
An hour later, the conversation had divided into two. Noonie, Lek and Georgina were at one end of the table; at the other, Mark and Edward were talking about something else.
“I’ve never been to England,” Noonie said. “I fell in love with it through English novels, I suppose, mainly ones Georgina and Alice gave me when I was little. Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility - ”
“You read Sense and Sensibility when you were little?” Lek said.
“I’m exaggerating. About twelve or thirteen.”
“I’m with EM Forster on this,” Georgina said. “I support the world community of ‘the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky’.”
Lek turned to her. “Are you ever going to go back to England?”
“Maybe some day. I keep saying that, though. I’ve been away so long now I hardly recognise the place any more.”
“There’s nothing more depressing than that,” Lek said. “You leave a place, then when you try to go back, you realise it’s left you. It’s why I wanted to come back to Thailand after we married.”
“Does Mark ever get homesick?” Noonie asked.
“We go back to England fairly regularly,” Lek replied. “See his parents, stay with Edward. It’s less of a problem than it used to be.”
“People can get used to anything if they keep at it for long enough,” Georgina said.
“Phuket isn’t just ‘anything’ though,” Noonie said.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“But it’s not home, not for Mark,” Lek said. “Or it wasn’t. It always amazes me these people who go on holiday somewhere and they like the weather so they decide to settle down there. The weather, my God.”
“That’s very English,” Georgina said.
“I’ve - ” Noonie said. She broke off as it became clear that at the other end of the table, where the men were, Edward was raising his voice. All three women stopped to look.
“Cars are for getting from A to B in,” Edward said. “Clothes are for protecting you against the weather, maybe for making you look more attractive. They’re not signifiers to some deep level of individuality, unique to you. Nothing is.”
Mark leaned back in his chair. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that it’s my view, not that people think they’re famous already, but that they want to be famous, and they try to buy into fame by accumulating its tokens, the little things they associate with fame. The difference between my view and yours is that people aren’t under any illusions, hence not ‘stupid’. How would you set about proving your view and refuting mine? I don’t think you could.”
“It comes down to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? People engaging in a means to achieve an end which, any idiot can see, can’t be expected to achieve that end.”
“That depends how famous they want to be,” Mark said.
Edward huffed. “No, it doesn’t. It depends whether it’s worth the effort. If it’s a complete banality, an utter waste of a human life, then what’s the point?”
“Oh, come on. Who are we to judge ‘the point’?”
“Yoo-hoo,” Lek said, waving her hand. They turned to face her.
“Oh, hello, Lek,” Edward said.
“What do you think, ladies?” asked Mark. “Are we entitled to judge other people just for buying designer clothes and caring about what the ‘in’ crowd does?”
“Well, that’s why we have dinner-parties in the first place,” Lek said. “Judge people.”
“No, seriously,” he said.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
Noonie leaned forward and diffidently twirled the stem of her glass. “What about if they’re accumulating these little tokens of fame because they’re lonely?” she said. “Maybe people have lost the skill of introducing themselves to strangers without feeling embarrassed. I spot you in a Gap coat and you spot me in one and suddenly we’ve got a basis for saying , ‘Ooh, where did you get that?’ then everything else follows naturally. And before you know it, we’ve become friends.”
There was a pause as everyone considered this. “What a lovely thing to say!” said Lek.
Noonie smiled and flushed. She looked at the tablecloth and flushed deeper.
“I – I accept that may be possible,” Edward said.
“Have another glass of wine, Noonie,” Lek said. She caught Mark’s eye and mouthed the word, ‘Besotted’. He nodded sagely.
