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DAVID BLAMEWORTH TRIED not to let Georgina out of his sight. She’d played no part in the wedding and hadn’t wished the happy couple good luck. Afterwards, she began to display all the symptoms of a mighty interventionist. She sat well away from bride and groom, conversed with no one and ate nothing.
Nevertheless, the evening ended peacefully. Presumably – although to talk to her, you’d never guess it - she knew when she’d been beaten.
When the guests began to disperse, he felt relieved enough to want to thank her. He stopped her as she was leaving the building.
“No hard feelings then,” he said.
She turned to face him. “You win. For now.”
“For now, eh? What does that mean?”
She said nothing. Her face was grave.
He grinned. “I mean, even if they get divorced, I’ve still ‘won’, as you put it. It’s none of my business what they do next. I wish them all the best, naturally, as I do all my couples.”
“Naturally.”
“Now that it’s all over, tell me what you said to Charles Swinter to make him keel over that day, eh? I half expected you to drop an even bigger bombshell today.”
“You never know, I still might.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve been talking to a friend of mine, a woman of some influence on this island, who also happens to know Noonie socially. We’ve agreed there’s something ‘odd’ about this marriage.”
“There’s nothing – odd.”
She smiled. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“What do you mean, ‘odd’?”
“Well, if we knew that, we wouldn’t have had to hire a Private Detective. Ex-Bangkok Police Department. Very good, very thorough. He may or may not want to speak to you at some point.”
“You bloody sour old witch.”
“Relax, I’m sure you’ve nothing to hide.”
As she walked away, David Blameworth cursed her under his breath. But he was no stranger to worst-case scenarios. He was used to them.
The trouble was, there were a variety of ways a Private Detective might uncover the truth about Noonie’s marriage, despite the care he’d taken.
Her two brothers could give nothing away – he’d arranged for one of his friends in Bangkok to wreck their apartment and demand protection money, just as the letter said; then he’d magically appeared on the scene, promised to take care of them, and got them to write a letter home, identical to the one he had forged. He’d even substituted it for the forged letter, in Tasanee’s bundle. But obviously there were people in Bangkok who did know the truth, and they might have spoken to others and be willing to speak to yet others.
Secondly, Noonie almost certainly wouldn’t find out about Charles’s deterioration until she reached England with him. He was set to sleep through their wedding-night, having unsuspectingly swallowed two powerful sleeping tablets with his meal. His true age wasn’t a problem, either. Most likely no one at the British Embassy would remark on it when they went for Noonie’s Visa.
But he had no doubt the truth would emerge eventually. He might even find himself facing a prison sentence unless he formed some sort of contingency plan.
He’d been in Phuket too long anyway, always meaning to take to the road, forever lacking the motivation. As usual, necessity was the mother of invention. The money was all in his account now where no one could touch it. He’d begin again with a long sojourn in Laos.
A week later, Noonie was with Tasanee and Charles in the airport Departures Lounge. Charles was apparently trying to extricate himself from them. Tasanee gave him advice for the journey which he received with a sour face, as if it were the mutterings of an imbecile.
“I’ll join you as soon as I can,” Noonie said. “A month.”
Charles hissed through his incisors and said, “I’ll be counting the days.”
“Do you still love me?”
“Yes. I still love you. I’m not well. Things will sort themselves out later on, believe me.”
“Should I come with you now? I could just drop everything and come with you, if that would be better. I could get a ticket now.”
“I wouldn’t think of it. What ... what would your students think, apart from anything else? Now pucker up. I’ll get the house ready and put the kettle on. You run along home and look after your mother.”
He patted her bottom, kissed her cheek and hobbled away. He didn’t turn back. He rounded the corner and was gone.
Noonie began to cry. Tasanee put her arm around her and led her to a seat. A plane roared overhead and the sun glared at them through the glass.
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s just not very well,” Tasanee said.
“What if he dies?”
“I don’t think he’s going to die just yet. He’s only young.”
“Fifty-five isn’t young. What if he does die and I’m not with him?”
“Come on, you’re just overwrought. First, giving in your notice – we all know how hard that must have been. You were just getting established there. Then the horrid Visa interview. God knows why they had to be so nasty. All the travelling, as well, Bangkok and back in two days. You’re overtired and he’s unwell. You’ve got a month now. Treat it as a break.”
Noonie was nodding. “We haven’t even slept together yet.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t wake him on our wedding night.”
“He’s ill, Noonie. Don’t you understand what that means?”
“Yes, but - ”
“Good God, you’ll get more than enough of that before your time comes, don’t you worry. Men are all the same. Make the most of it while it lasts.”
“But on our wedding night.”
“You’ll be laughing about it in a few months time.”
Noonie wiped her nose with a tissue. “I don’t think I will.”
“Stop tormenting yourself.”
“I think ... you know ... I think he hates me.”
Tasanee laughed. “Hates you? Oh my goodness, you are tired.”
“I wish I’d never given in my notice.”
“Well take it back!”
“I can’t. I don’t want to. Oh, I don’t know what I want. I’m scared.”
“I know what you want. A good rest. Come on, let’s get you home.”
“I’m really scared. I don’t want to go to England, not any more. I’m frightened of what I’m going to find there.”
“You’re entitled to be scared. But it’s going to be okay, trust me.”
“What if it isn’t?”
“It will be. Just stop ... thinking about it. Let your body do the walking. Keep your mind occupied with other things.”
Noonie forced herself to smile. Since losing contact with Georgina, she’d begun to appreciate how perceptive Tasanee really was. She’d never seen it before, but then she’d never had need of it before. Not like this.
Three days later, she was back at school. It was late afternoon. She crept along the Art corridor towards the staffroom. In the short time she had left here, she was determined to avoid Mark Shawcross, and that meant keeping her eyes peeled.
She had to visit the staffroom twice a day – once in the morning, to check the bulletin, and once at the end of the day, to check her pigeonhole. Otherwise, she could spend her time between her classroom and the picnic benches outside. She had a backlog of marking to get through and there was no need for her to visit the Science corridor unless she was asked to cover for someone. Which hadn’t happened yet.
“Congratulations, Miss,” two girls said, behind her.
She returned their wave. Being congratulated on a frequent basis had helped calm her jitters. The feeling that Charles hated her had largely dissipated now. She couldn’t imagine what had prompted it. She was happily married.
The staffroom was almost empty, no sign of Mark Shawcross anywhere. She took the pile of papers out of her pigeonhole, sat down in the corner on her own and began to sort through them.
Mostly, they were circulars and internal memos, but two items stood out. Small buff envelopes, identical in size, each with her own name handwritten in the centre, in Thai. She eased the first open. Her heart bubbled up into her skin when she saw who it was from. Lek Shawcross, dated over a week previously.
“I am writing to apologise for my appalling behaviour towards you and your fiancé on Sunday,” she wrote. Each sheet was heavy and watermarked.
... and to ask that you at least read to the end of this letter before passing final judgement on me.
The fact is, I arrived at the Brunton Taylorforth at the invitation of Charles Swinter, having no idea you were engaged to be married. The shock of discovering that you were to be the next Mrs Swinter made me realise how stupid I had been, undertaking a course of action whose details I shall relate in a moment. Deplorably, I expended on you the anger that I should have expended on myself. The truth is that throughout Friday, and even beforehand, matters were not as they may have seemed.
At the risk of boring you with a cupboard full of biographical information, I shall begin at the beginning.
Many years ago, Edward, Mark and I went to university together, and Mark and I continue to feel a strong bond of affection for our erstwhile fellow-student. Mark and I have achieved something close to blissful contentment since we married and came to Phuket. Of course, no one has a right to such a thing, but it is a matter of regret to both of us that happiness more generally has evaded Edward.
The fact that I am now having a baby means we will probably have less time for him in the future. We decided to make one last-ditch attempt to save him from an everlasting glum solitude, coinciding with what will surely be his last visit to this island before the baby arrives.
Mark, knowing you from his place of work, recommended you as well suited to the little matchmaking attempt we planned, and which we would have ventured even without you. He said there was a universal consensus within the school that you are intelligent, kind and not easily perturbed. My ‘bumping into’ you in the supermarket that night was therefore no accident, nor the fact that we left Edward to ‘look after the equipment’ for four nights, nor that Edward ‘became’ Sir Gawain, and you, the Fairy Princess. Everything was contrived by Mark and I, simply to bring the two of you together.
Unpardonably, I failed to check that you were in a position to participate in any of this. To make matters worse, before we met on Sunday, Edward confessed to developing fairly strong feelings for you. So when I found that you actually had your own plans for your own life, I reacted badly. If it helps to condone my behaviour, I am nearly thirty-six weeks pregnant and prone to inappropriate behaviour anyway.
For all this, I want to be your friend. I apologise for deceiving you (although, in my defence, it was a benign deception, of the sort that friends habitually practise on each other). But I know there can be no excuse for my petulance on Sunday. I will understand if you never wish to speak to me again, although I would be sorry for so many reasons.
One last request. Please destroy this letter once you have read it, and never, under any circumstances, mention its contents to Edward, should the two of you ever meet again (I understand he is determined to return to England before the wedding, but, perhaps, reading this, you can understand why). Naturally, he has no idea that I was trying to throw the two of you together. And I have no intention of telling him. If he was to find out, he would, at best, despise my shallowness, an outcome which would spell the long-term end of our friendship; at worst, however, that friendship would end immediately. I could not stand that.
Yours contritely, Lek Shawcross.
Until now, she thought she knew why Lek and Mark and Edward were so furious. David Blameworth had spelt it out for her some time earlier.
Being at the Lunch Party, they could hardly have failed to hear about the dowry. Three million Bahts was big news. Big news travelled fast. She’d instinctively sensed their disapproval, recognised its cause, then, for a split second, seen herself through their eyes. She was both the whore they took her for and the respectable woman who saw herself cast in this role.
She read it again. Edward had confessed to developing fairly strong feelings for you. So she’d been wrong about everything. They’d never thought her a prostitute. It had had nothing to do with the dowry.
She’d thought about him before blacking out, the day Charles proposed. Yes, she remembered now. My God. It had seemed arbitrary at the time but with hindsight ... could she have developed a slight crush on him?
If so, his hauteur that Sunday had nipped it in the bud. She’d wanted nothing further to do with any of them: Edward particularly, because she expected so much more from him. Together they’d reinforced her bond with Charles. They’d foreclosed whatever ‘crush’ she might have developed and locked her in with her determination to marry.
But none of her presumptions had been correct. She didn’t know what to think or do now – even whether to sit or stand. Waves of contradictory emotions swept over her like hot and cold blankets.
She noticed she was trembling. A drop of water appeared on her blouse. She was crying. She wondered how a person’s eyes could be crying on their own. She was brimful of a mixture of emotions, but she didn’t know what they were called or whether they were working together or whether they were at war.
She had a second letter in her hand, waiting to be read. She prised it open.
“Apologies for the fact that this will reach you simultaneously with another letter of completely different import,” Lek wrote, in the same formal script as before, “and which would have been delivered to you earlier, had the birth of a healthy baby girl not intervened. Mark and I would be very pleased if you would do us the honour of being one of our daughter’s Godparents (Georgina and Edward will be the others), in a Christian service of infant baptism. If you are a Buddhist, as I suspect you may be, don’t worry: so am I. Please, please say yes. No more conspiracies, I promise. RSVP.”
Noonie had had enough of thinking now. She looked around for a pen and some paper and scribbled an acceptance. She had no idea whether she was doing the right thing, but she didn’t want to decline. Why, she didn’t know. She put the note into Mark’s pigeonhole, went back to her room and sat down on her bed.
Two hours later, she was still there, plying herself with questions. She began to put two and two together. Edward hadn’t left the Lunch Party with Mark and Lek, rather he’d stayed behind and drunk himself into a stupor. Now she knew why. She didn’t want to know.
She calmed herself. Edward was more intelligent than her, better-looking than her, more socially adept than her, more confident than her. The gloomy feeling she’d had after Lek’s dinner-party returned, but this time it consoled her: Edward belonged to a circle to which she could only ever gain admittance on an honorary basis.
By contrast, Charles needed her and his dependence could only increase with time. She didn’t feel inferior in his company and he wasn’t better looking than her, nor was he likely to become so.
Lots of European marriages ended in divorce. She didn’t want a divorce. Marriage was supposed to be for life. Yet she could imagine Edward divorcing her. It was one of the things sophisticated Europeans did. But not Charles. She couldn’t imagine Charles divorcing her. He was old enough to be beyond that.
So she’d done the right thing, after all. Even if she’d known all about Edward’s ‘feelings’ for her and her ‘feelings’ for him, this was the right course.
It would be best if she didn’t see him again, however casually. She’d been mistaken to accept Lek’s offer of Godmotherhood. She had to retrieve her reply before it was too late. She got up and went straight over to the staffroom.
But Mark’s pigeonhole was empty.
