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ON MONDAY MORNING, Mark set off for work alone. Since Noonie would also be at work and out of the way, Edward decided this was as good a time to talk to Charles as any.
Talking to Charles was, after all, what he’d claimed he’d do now, even though he didn’t rate his chances. As soon as it was finished he wanted to get out of the country. Lek and Mark’s pity was killing him. It was even worse than his disappointment with Noonie.
At ten o’clock, he climbed two flights of hotel stairs and knocked on Charles’s door.
“Enter!”
Charles lay on his bed, in trousers, a dress shirt and bare feet, reading The Times. He stood up, grabbed Edward’s hand and embraced him, just like yesterday. The fan on the ceiling hummed, disturbing an open magazine directly beneath it. An electric kettle clicked off on the dresser.
“Good to see you again,” Charles said. “How’s the hangover? And don’t tell me you haven’t got one. Sit down, sit down. I’m so glad you called. I wanted to tell you, this changes nothing. Do you understand? Nothing at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you and Thanongsak have always felt free to come round to my place on impulse. I don’t expect that to change. Little wifey potters about in the kitchen, cooks us an omelette, pours us three nice, cold beers. She won’t mind that at all. That’s the beauty of a Thai beauty. And she is beautiful, you must admit.”
“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about, actually.”
“Go on, then. My mind’s made up, though. I love her, she loves me, end of.”
“I’m only concerned for your welfare. I wouldn’t try to dissuade you from anything if I thought it wasn’t in your interests.”
“Oh, so that’s your game, is it? Listen, I’m in far too deep to be dissuaded now. There is such a thing as a dowry, you know, and that makes all the difference. I’m paid up.”
“I’m not with you.”
“You know what a dowry is, surely?”
“You mean, you’ve paid some money to her family so the marriage can proceed ... ”
“I’m committed now, fully committed. I couldn’t back out if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”
“How much?”
“That would be telling.”
He couldn’t leave without knowing. He hated clichés but he had no choice. “I am your best friend. For friendship’s sake?”
“You’re twisting my arm.”
“If it’s a lot, I’ll stop trying to dissuade you.”
“For friendship’s sake, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“Listen, Edward, I’d like you to be my best man but we’re having a Buddhist ceremony and they don’t have best men. I might as well tell you that now.”
Time for his prepared lie. “I’m presenting a paper to the Physics Department at Southampton, on Thursday. I’ve got to get back. I need the feedback.”
“Bloody shame.”
The hum of the air conditioning resumed.
“I’ll tell you how much,” Charles whispered, as if there was someone hiding, “if you promise to tell no one else. I’ve been sworn to secrecy by Mr Blameworth – the marriage broker – and if it gets out at all, in any way, I’m done for. This is for friendship’s sake, that alone. Comprendez?”
“I promise.”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“Three hundred thousand? What? Bahts?”
Charles hooted. “No, not Bahts, goon. Bahts aren’t worth anything. Pounds. Pounds sterling.”
“Three hundred thousand pounds? Is that normal?”
“Well, it’s bit above the going rate for a really high calibre woman, yes. But I was in a bidding war. It would take too long to explain. Anyway, it’s done and dusted now. I can afford it and it’s what I want.”
“Wow,” Edward said, trying to keep the rancour out of his voice. There was no point in further discussion. He changed the subject. “So when are you expecting to fly home?”
“Right after the wedding. I’ll have to get some new pots and pans in, do the kitchen up, buy a new Hoover, bin bags, soap powder, the works. I don’t want her thinking I don’t care.”
“No.”
“Of course, when you think about it, this is going to make things even better. I mean, between us. The three of us. You and me and Thanongsak.”
“How do you mean?”
“Because at the moment, I’m the only one without any Thai friends. You’ve got your Thai friends. And I know you keep having them over to stay with you, and you never introduce them to me. Well, now we’ve both got Thai friends. Only I’ve gone one better.”
“The reason I’ve never introduced you to ‘my Thai friends’ – although, strictly speaking, only one of them’s Thai - is they usually only stop over for one night. They really come over to visit Mark’s relatives and they all live in Berkshire.”
“I bet you’ve introduced them to Thanongsak.”
“I haven’t actually.”
“Not even to Thanongsak? But he’s Thai. Surely, they want to see other Thais?”
“They don’t come over to check how the world domination of Thais is going. If they wanted to see other Thais they could just open their front door.”
“Anyway, you’re missing the point. You’ve got your Thai friends, Thanongsak’s got his, now I’ve - ”
“I don’t think he has.”
“What?”
“Thanongsak: ‘got his Thai friends’.”
“He must have.”
“Because he’s Thai?”
“Well ... yes ...”
“If he has, he’s never mentioned them to me.”
Charles mused. “Maybe that’s connected to his bitterness. He’s quite a bitter man. Haven’t you noticed?”
“You asked me that at the funeral. No, I haven’t.”
“Look Edward, let’s cut to the chase. I can see you’re disappointed and I know why. You think things are going to change between us. Well, they’re not. Just give it time, you’ll see. Everything’s going to be the same, except much better. I give you my word as a gentleman.”
Edward let himself out of Charles’s room with extremely mixed feelings. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for Noonie. Lek’s ‘gold-digger’ assessment was probably right, however counter-intuitive. Weighing the money she had secured against her likely future, though, he felt she’d got by far the worse end of the bargain.
But he didn’t want to witness her slow degradation. She wouldn’t be cooking him an omelette, oh no. He’d be too choked to eat it. Once back in Britain, he’d put his house on the market and move to another part of the country.
The Scottish Highlands perhaps, where there were acres and acres of no one.
After she stormed out of the Brunton Taylorforth Lek was ready to denounce Noonie to anyone who’d listen. But her belligerence died an incremental, relatively swift death and by the middle of that week it was gone.
Georgina came round to see her on Sunday evening. She had been at the Brunton Taylorforth that day and heard about her abrupt departure. She wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl.
Lek pretended to be reading the paper. “It’s a nothing.”
“As I see,” Georgina said, looking at her bump. “Is there something wrong?”
Lek put the paper down and looked at her. “Did you know Noonie was engaged to be married to Charles Swinter? I mean, last Friday?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It just came out of the blue, did it?”
“Not entirely, I admit.”
“Well?”
“I knew he’d been courting her. I didn’t expect a marriage proposal. Not that quickly.”
“I think it’s disgusting. If I’d known she was a grubby little magpie, I’d never have had her round here.”
“Stop there, before you say something you really regret.”
“Don’t try to defend her, Georgina.”
“She doesn’t need me to defend her. And before you say it, I don’t have a Noonie blind-spot. She’s as decent and honest now as she was a week or a year ago. If you think I’m not bitterly disappointed by what’s happened, think again. I’m more than that. I’m furious. But not with her. Apart from anything else, I know she loves him, however odd that sounds. Now if it’s okay with you, I think we should drop the subject.”
Lek sighed and ground her molars. “Sorry, yes. I’m just very sad, that’s all. For Edward, partly. But for her as well.”
“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry for not keeping you in the picture. I was wrong not to tell you about Charles Swinter.”
They shook hands.
Clearly Georgina couldn’t be that wrong about her. She was a good judge of character and she’d known Noonie forever. Something odd was going on.
The next morning, Lek came downstairs to find Mark and Edward in the middle of an argument in the kitchen. She sat on the stairs to listen.
“Yes,” Mark said sardonically, “she didn’t seem ... dim.”
“Well, actually, that’s right,” Edward replied.
There was a pause. The fridge door closed, then Mark’s voice:
“Listen Edward, I’ve never subscribed to this view of yours that people are mostly stupid. On the whole, they’re every bit as intelligent as you or I. They just choose to put their brains at the service of something you don’t appreciate the importance of. Money. They’re greedy, in other words.”
“They choose to overvalue a basic necessity. That’s stupid.”
“She could die poor but she’s chosen to die rich. What’s so stupid about that?”
“You’ve got to work with her, Mark. She’s your colleague. You’re the one who should be trying to come to terms with her, not me. Do you really think this is helping? You making her out to be a monster?”
“She’s not a monster, that’s the whole point. The ‘nicest’ people can be greedy. It’s a contract, according to which we all agree that greed isn’t greed – it’s just natural self-interest or something poxy like that – because the assumption is, we’re all greedy underneath. Well, I don’t buy into that assumption.”
“She didn’t strike me as greedy either.”
“She’s marrying a rich eighty year-old. I’d say she’s after him for his money. What would you say?”
“I admit I don’t have an explanation.”
“It’s a no-brainer, for crying out loud.”
“When we were at university, you and Lek were always going on at me for having too low an opinion of people. Now here I am standing up for someone in the face of adverse evidence. She must have something going for her, don’t you think?”
“You’re too emotionally embroiled to be objective, that’s all.”
“Which I believe is Catch Twenty-two.”
“It’s academic, anyway.”
“No it isn’t. It’s not her that’s at issue here. It’s my ability to judge human nature.”
That afternoon, Lek sat down at her bureau to write Noonie a letter. She was in full contrition now. The only reason she’d been angry yesterday was because she’d thrown away so much time and effort bringing Noonie and Edward together. She didn’t like to be thwarted. She was a control freak if she was honest, and, like all control freaks, a bad loser. That granted, she needed to send Noonie more than a brief note of apology. She needed to send her a full explanation.
She wrote for an hour in Thai then re-read what she had written. She couldn’t help smiling at her efforts. Even now, after all that had happened, she was still surreptitiously matchmaking. Even now, she was unable to accept defeat.
There were five minutes still to go before Edward had to check in. They were on the upstairs level of Phuket International airport, amongst the tiled floors, tinted glass, plastic seats, bored tannoy broadcasts and weary human bustle.
This was the end of an era. The next time they met, Lek and Mark would be parents. Another step down their separate roads, away from each other.
“We’ll come over and stay with you in England,” Mark said. “If you’ll still have us when the baby’s born.”
“You’re all welcome any time of the day or night,” Edward replied. “You know that.”
“When the baby’s born, we’re bringing her over to show Mark’s grandma,” Lek said.
Mark smiled. “As a small part of our itinerary. We’ll principally be bringing her to show my parents.”
“I look forward to seeing all three of you.”
“Anyway, have a pleasant journey, Edward. We’ll - ”
Lek grabbed Mark’s arm and her eyes bulged. “Speaking of having the baby, Mark ...!”
“Shit,” Mark said. “Edward, you get Lek over to that seat, I’ll go and bring the car round. Can you hang on for just ten minutes?”
“I’ll get a later flight. Scoot. Come on, Lek, it’s going to be fine.”
Two hours later, Lek gave birth to a girl. Mark stayed with her throughout. He staggered into the hospital corridor after the third hour looking pleased and queasy.
“It’s female,” he told Edward, pulling himself up. “It’s fine. And you can come in.”
Edward clutched a bunch of flowers. He shook Mark’s hand and gave him a cigar and they went in to see Lek.
The room was painted grey, with two windows at the top of the opposite walls. Lek sat up in a metal bed, looking worn out. The baby was wrapped in a shawl on her chest, asleep. Edward had listened outside as she screamed for over three-quarters of an hour. The only words he caught were ‘Yed Mae’, over and over again. He had no idea what it meant, but he guessed it was a plea for help.
“How thoughtful,” Lek said when she saw the flowers. “Mark, run and get a vase, there’s a good boy.”
“They were fresh when I bought them.”
“Yes, sorry for having taken so long,” she said.
“I didn’t mean - ”
“Joke. Come and look at the miniature.”
He leaned over and peered into the bundle. “She’s lovely.”
“She is pretty damn gorgeous now you come to mention it. Guess what we’re going to call her?”
“You’ll have to give me a clue.”
“It’s a Thai name.”
“Well in that case, I’ve no idea.”
“It’s a Thai name that’s known to you.”
“You’re not going to call her ‘Lek’ by any chance, are you?”
“Bingo. Meet Lek Shawcross the Second. Or, to give her her full name, Lek Shawcross the Second Shawcross.”
“You’ve lost me, I’m afraid. You’re calling her Lek?”
“Rewind. Yes.”
“Lek ‘Shawcross the Second’?”
“Shawcross.”
“So that’s - ”
“Lek Shawcross the Second Shawcross. Come on, Edward, keep up. Lek – first name; middle name – Shawcross the Second; surname – Shawcross. I’m starting a girl dynasty, Edward. I’m Lek Shawcross the First; she’s Lek Shawcross the Second. Apart from anything else, it’ll be a great mother-daughter bonding thing when she gets older. And when she has a daughter, she’ll call it Lek Shawcross the Third Whatever-her-surname-is-once-she’s-married. Do you see?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think it’s a great idea?”
“What if you’re both upstairs, and Mark shouts, ‘Lek’?”
“That’s his problem.”
“So he actually has to shout, ‘Lek Shawcross the First’?”
“Oh, come on, Edward, get a life. That’s a silly objection. Anyway, my mind’s made up.”
“Isn’t Shawcross Mark’s family name?”
“It was. You don’t think I chose Mark by accident, do you?”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward. “Edward? Favour?”
“Anything you like.”
“I should have asked you this before. Long story, with a big question at the end. I’m a Buddhist, Mark’s a Christian. He’s not a big, shout-it-out-from-the-rooftops kind of Christian but he swings that way, if you know what I mean. End of the week, we’re going to have some Buddhist monks over to our house to perform a khwan. Then, in three weeks time, we’re going to have her baptised into the Church of England. I’m keen on the idea – in fact, I’m keener than Mark is: he’s fairly indifferent – because I want Lek to have Godparents. Mentors. We need two Godmothers, one Godfather. We want you to be the Godfather. And, assuming he’s free – although we can work around him, to some extent - we’d like you to bring your brother over, at our expense, to perform the baptism.”
“George?”
“What do you say?”
“I’m sure I can twist George’s arm. He’d be delighted.”
“And you?”
“Ditto. It’s a big responsibility. Are you sure you can trust me?”
“Implicitly. The English always say that: ‘Are you sure you can trust me?’ ‘Implicitly.’ What’s it mean? Anyway, it would mean you either staying on here for three weeks – staying with us, because a hotel’s not an option – or going home and coming back.”
“The trouble is I’ve already told Charles a lie. I told him I absolutely had to get back to England. I feel guilty about the air-miles of course, but - ”
“Okay, you can go back to England if that’s what you’re determined to do. I understand you wanting to put thousands of miles between you and the wedding. We’re not looking to do the baptism for at least three weeks anyway. You can liaise with your brother face-to-face. Like I say, we’ll pay for your return to Phuket.”
“I wouldn’t hear of it. I’ll be there.”
“I worship you,” she said.
“Who are the Godmothers going to be?”
“Georgina Chappel’s going to be one. I’m not sure about the other. Ideally, of course, I’d like it to be Mark’s grandma, but that’s never going to happen. I might ask one of the nurses if I like any of them enough. I’ll have to think. Why?”
“Just curious, that’s all.”
Mark returned with a vase. He took Edward’s flowers, unwrapped them, fanned them out in their new container and put them on the bedside table.
Lek re-fanned them and turned to Mark. “I want you to take Edward home now. I can’t imagine he wants to spend too much longer sitting in a hospital. Edward, there’s food in the fridge. Get whatever you want.”
“I’ll come and say goodbye tomorrow morning, on my way to the airport.”
“And I’ll come straight back,” Mark said.
“There’s no need. Go out for a drink with Edward. Really. I’m probably going to sleep for the next however-many-hours-till-the-baby-wakes-up. Come back and see me in the morning if you like.”
The nurse put her head round the door. “Mr and Mrs Kongwatmai are outside,” she said. “They said to tell you they’ve just flown in from Singapore.”
“Lek’s parents,” Mark hissed to Edward.
“Who told them I’d given birth?” Lek said.
Mark raised his hand.
Lek smiled frostily. “Well, you’d better make yourself scarce if you’re not ready for them.”
“I suppose I’ll have to be, eventually.”
She looked up. “You can get out through the air vent if you pull the grille off.”
Mark returned in the middle of the Kongwatmais’ visit and counted the ceiling tiles while Lek talked to them. After they left, the nurse poked her head round the door and announced Georgina Chappel. This was what Lek was waiting for and she ordered Mark out of the room. Half an hour later, Georgina had agreed to become a Godmother.
Lek sighed. “Georgina, I’m sorry for what I said about Noonie on Sunday evening.”
“I don’t think you were right, but – time will tell. Surprises –shocks, even - happen. Don’t apologise for a position you took in good faith.”
“Forgiven?”
“Nothing to forgive.”
“Because I think there’s something odd going on.”
Georgina shrugged. “Possibly. But there probably isn’t. I’ve known Noonie since she was seven. You’ve got to go back a long way to understand what’s happened here.”
“Go on ...”
“Noonie’s parents died just after she was born. It’s a long story, but let’s just say her birth-mother chose to marry one of the most unsuitable men on the island –someone who couldn’t provide even the suggestion of a dowry. As I understand it, the arrangement was that baby Noonie should go to the Kitkailarts so she could be raised in such a way as to bring in the equivalent of two dowries: hers and her mother’s. Of course, that all depended on her being spectacularly beautiful, but her mother was spectacularly beautiful, so I suppose it mustn’t have seemed like too unreasonable a hope. Foal and dam.”
“It all sounds very peculiar.”
“It’s not something the like of which I’ve ever heard before and I’ve lived in Thailand a long time. Yet it’s perfectly logical, within its narrow terms of reference.”
“It’s new to me,” Lek said.
“To be fair to the Kitkailarts, they’ve shown Noonie all the love her actual parents would have. They always treated the two-dowry thing as more of a pious hope than a solid expectation.”
“But...?”
“But the fact is, Noonie has been brought up in search of a dowry. Where do big dowries come from? Farangs – especially elderly farangs. However odd it may all seem, she’s only doing now what she’s been programmed to do.”
“‘Programmed’? Yes, I see what you mean.”
“The tragedy is, I was complicit in the whole process. I even went into it with my eyes open. I thought it would be possible to sabotage it. But I wasn’t strong enough. Ironically, I became a collaborator.”
Lek took her hand.
Georgina was emotional now. She blinked several times, quickly. “So, you see there’s nothing intrinsically ‘odd’ about it, really. Nothing underhand. Once you know her story ... And yet ...”
“Go on ...”
“I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps there’s something. I accused him of being gay. Charles Swinter.”
“You what?”
“Mad idea, in retrospect. It seemed so right at the time. He almost had a fit. Noonie had to pull a lot of strings to get me invited to the wedding and I had to apologise of course, which I was glad to do. But you’re right. There is ... something.”
“Yesterday,” Lek said, “Edward went to see Charles Swinter with a view to talking him out of it. He failed. But when he came back – I can read Edward like a book – there was a ... change about him. He didn’t want to talk about it. But I don’t know. It’s difficult to put my finger on it. It was as if he’d learned something. Something fairly haunting, you know? I couldn’t get him to open up. God knows, I tried.”
“So perhaps there is something more than meets the eye. What are we going to do about it?”
“I remember you telling me Noonie had a twin brother.”
“Adirake Leekpai. I don’t suppose he’ll know - ”
“And that you hired a Private Detective to try to find him.”
Georgina grinned. “Mr Yanphaisarn. Mr Prakong Yanphaisarn.”
“Now that I’ve got little Lek to look after, I need something to keep me in touch with the outside world. While I’m on maternity leave.”
“If we do hire him, it could be a long wait. He’s slow, but meticulous.”
“That’s what we want, isn’t it?”
Georgina laughed. “But it could all be for nothing. It might just be us reading too much into things.”
“But neither of us believes it is ... do we?”
Georgina raised her eyebrows. “No, actually you’re right. We don’t.”
“So when do we get to meet this ‘Mr Prakong Yanpaisarn’?”
After Georgina left, Lek fell to thinking. Charles Swinter looked young for his age. He was obviously healthy and could well live to see a hundred. But even that was only twenty more years. It stood to reason he wasn’t going to give Noonie any children, not at eighty. Assuming the worst, even then Edward would only be fifty against Noonie’s forty-six. Edward probably wasn’t going to get any more chances to get married between now and then, because he was a recluse. And once he fell in love, he did so with a long memory. When Charles Swinter died, Noonie and Edward might – just might ...
Noonie should be her second Godmother.
