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THEY STOOD IN THE ENTRANCEWAY to the restaurant. Thanongsak took her coat and hung it on a peg.
“Are you beginning to feel homesick yet?” he said.
“Before I answer that, I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Anything.”
“The private nurse you hired said she’d been given the option of staying on with Charles till late tomorrow morning. What exactly are you anticipating?”
“What do you think I’m anticipating?”
“I’m not intending to spend the night here.”
“The – the thought never crossed my mind. I simply thought that after a good night out and a few glasses of wine, you might want to go straight to sleep when you got in. That’s all. I - ”
She flushed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve arranged for a taxi to pick you up here between ten and twelve. They said they’d have one available then. Check, if you don’t believe me.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m homesick. It must be affecting my judgement. Right now, I’d give anything for an hour in Phuket.”
“Okay ...”
She straightened the cuffs on her blouse. “Mind you, I’d probably spend most of it in floods of tears.”
He smiled. “It gets you like that. Let’s start over, shall we? No more apologies. Just friends. I don’t have any ulterior motives. Well, not yet.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not yet’?”
“You are very attractive. And very intelligent. And you know how to dress. And I’m a man. I can’t offer any long term guarantees.”
“Look, Thanongsak, I don’t want you to - ”
“But I’ll try my best just to be your good friend, if you promise to give that friendship a chance.”
“I can do that.”
“Then come forth into the restaurant, madam. Your meal awaits.”
He opened the door and she stepped into the lounge. Sixteen or seventeen tables stood between four walls and six shelves of Thai artefacts and Buddhas. A picture of the Thai royal family was framed by Siamese landscapes and etchings of Temples. Piped Luk Thung music mingled with the sound of water from a miniature fountain in the corner.
Her homesickness was both assuaged and intensified. She hadn’t set eyes on an image of the Buddha since leaving Thailand. She reached out to touch the nearest.
“That’s not a replica,” he said.
She withdrew. “What do you mean?”
“Pick it up. I wasn’t warning you off. It’s Suphannaphum dynasty. Five hundred years old.”
“I’ll – er, leave it where it is.”
“This one’s slightly younger. A late Ban Phlu Luang.”
“You’re a collector, I take it.”
“I happen to like the real thing, that’s all. And when I see it, I allow no material consideration to stand in my way. When I saw this, for example, all I thought was: ‘that’s beautiful’. I would have secured it at any cost. I’d even have sold the restaurant.”
“Shouldn’t it be in a museum? Bangkok somewhere?”
“I’m not exactly keen on museums.”
“Forgive me, but that sounds rather elitist.”
“Museums represent the proverbial putting all your eggs in one basket. If there’s a bomb or an earthquake, it’s the end of all your priceless artefacts. If they’re in the hands of private collectors, obviously it’s a different story.”
“But what if they’re stolen?”
“What if they are? If the thieves know what they’re doing – which they’re going to – they aren’t going to hurt them. It wouldn’t be in their interests. From the point of view of the artefacts themselves, it’s of little or no consequence.”
“But don’t you think people need to see them?”
He laughed. “People’s ‘need’ to see objects like these is exaggerated, in my view.”
She hooted. “You mean, ordinary people. Not people like you. You don’t just need to see them, apparently, you need to own them.”
“Because I can appreciate them.”
“Whereas people who pay half a day’s salary to get into a museum can’t?”
“I admit, that is a good argument. I’ll think about it, and if I agree, I’ll donate them to the National Museum Bangkok, okay?”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just curious. Anyway, if people don’t ‘need’ to see them, what’s it matter if they’re all destroyed by a bomb?”
“As I say, it matters to people like me.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to, but I can’t ignore it any longer. What’s that smell?”
He laughed. “I wondered how long it would take you to ask. It’s a treat. Especially for you.”
“It doesn’t smell like a treat. What is it? A dead cat?”
“It’s a durian.”
She burst into a smile. “A durian? Where did you get a durian?”
“Covent Garden, three am. Anything’s possible when you’re entertaining a VIP.”
She sat on the chair he pulled out. “Is that what I am, then? a VIP?”
“A very, very important person indeed. Wine?”
“Yes, please.”
He poured her a full glass then one for himself.
“I was taking a bit of a risk,” he said. “Valérie’s report on you gave no indication as to your culinary leanings.”
“Yes, I forgot you’d read an entire report on me. You must think you know me pretty well.”
“I could, of course, have read it and not told you. Remember, I didn’t commission it. I’m just trying to keep you one step ahead of your enemies.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Do you really think they’re my enemies, though? All of them?”
“Absolutely ... But we’re not here to talk business. Let’s tuck into that durian, shall we, before Health and Safety arrive with fumigators and gas-masks?”
He brought it in and cut it. Her first taste astonished her, somehow the flavour of Phuket itself. Her homesickness deepened.
“How long have you been in the restaurant business?” she asked.
“Since I came over here, ten years ago. It was Charles who helped set me up. Your ... ‘husband’.”
“My husband,” she said, neutering the irony. “Tell me about it. What did he do?”
“We first met at a wedding reception when I was twenty-five. I was one of the catering staff and I got into an altercation with the boss – the Head Chef – about Lemon Grass.”
“Lemon Grass?”
“I forget the precise details. It was a Thai menu. He wasn’t Thai. He began to do something stupid. I mean, food-stupid. I noticed, he took exception. Things escalated and before I knew it, he sacked me. Sacked in front of a hundred and thirty people, can you imagine that? I stormed out of the marquee.
“That could have been the end for me in this country. Perhaps it should have been. I walked five hundred yards across an open field and sat down on a rock. Charles came after me. I assumed he was the father of the bride come to demand an explanation.
“As it turned out, he was a peripheral guest at the wedding. He’d once donated a sum of money to the local Ladies’ Choir, of which the bride was in charge. Being marginal meant he was in a position to notice things that escaped most of the others, I suppose. Anyway, he’d followed the argument from its beginning. He claimed to know something about Lemon Grass – which I later discovered was a white lie – and said I was right. He wanted to lend me a sympathetic ear.
“There was something impressive about him, even in the mood I was in, I couldn’t help feeling he might be a useful patron. And of course, I had nothing to lose. I began a tirade that must have lasted a good thirty minutes against life, the universe and everything.
“Afterwards, he attempted to draw me on my plans for the future. If I could have whatever I wanted, what would it be? My own restaurant, I said. I can’t say I’ve ever regretted having uttered those words.
“To cut a long story short, he put the money up. I paid him back over three years. Thus our relationship was forged. Everything you see around you, now: I couldn’t have done any of this without him.”
“And you’ve never regretted it, you say?”
“Never.”
“Doesn’t it get a bit samey, though? I mean, cooking the same food over and over again, night after night, without even much chance for a holiday? Presumably, you can’t keep going away and leaving the place.”
“I haven’t had a proper holiday for over ten years.”
“My point entirely.”
“Food is power. I was an immigrant. I needed power. I still do.”
She laughed. “So that’s it, is it?”
“That’s it. That’s everything. Power.”
She raised her eyebrows. His gaze persuaded her he was in earnest and she felt discomfited. “I can see that if I’m starving,” she said by way of trying to shake the sensation, “and you’ve got food, you might be able to draft me into your service. But not in this society. Food’s everywhere.”
“Yes, cheap food, junk food. But I saw your eyes when I brought that durian in. For the tiniest fraction of a second, you were mine.”
“I was in the power of the durian, so to speak. And you owned the durian.”
“If I could just put enough of those moments together – lie them end to end – I could have you in my power indefinitely.”
“An infinite number of durians. Good luck.”
“Never underestimate the power of food. What I’m suggesting is simpler than you might think.”
He was making her more uncomfortable by the minute. My God, what if he’d drugged her food? Maybe that’s what he was driving at. It’s what predators liked to do. Warn their victims in advance. Perhaps it was time to start looking for a way out, before she ate or drank anything else. She began by re-engaging him.
“Your story,” she said. “Is that it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said, when we first met – the day you gave me Valérie’s report – that you had a ‘story’. Was that it? The story of you and Charles?”
“No. That was something else.”
“Well, are you going to tell me that story?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? I thought we were meant to be friends. Don’t friends share things like – whatever your ‘story’ is?”
“And we will. But it’s still too early in our relationship. One day, yes, I’ll tell you. Hopefully. When you’re ready. But I’m still coming to terms with it myself right now. Even now. A long time afterwards.”
“It’s nothing ... illegal, is it?”
“No. No, nothing illegal. Immoral maybe. Before I frighten you off, though, I wasn’t the perpetrator. I was the victim. And that’s as much as I’m willing to say – for both our sakes.”
“Subject closed.”
“I’m sorry.”
She was feeling very ill at ease now. She had no option but to change the subject. “Have you been to see Charles lately?”
“Charles? No, of course not.”
“You said that as if it was out of the question.”
“What would be the point?”
“Does there have to be a ‘point’?” she said.
“Noonie, Charles is dead now. Over. Finito. The thing that’s lying there isn’t Charles. You must see that, surely?”
“No, I don’t. I accept I’m released from some of my obligations to Charles. But if you really love someone, being with them is nothing to do with obligation.”
“And that’s how you feel about Charles, is it? You love him?”
“I don’t consider him ‘over, finito’.”
“I can’t help feeling it’s just a matter of time before you do.”
She sighed. “So Charles gave you the money to buy a restaurant. Was it a condition that you should buy one in his locality?”
“It didn’t come about like that. This restaurant had become available. It was a Chinese before I took it over. And it was in a prime location. I wanted to get started quickly, and it seemed like a good idea to have my patron to hand, in case of unforeseen expenses. I didn’t discover until much later – recently, in fact - that Charles had his reasons for wanting me to live nearby.”
“Appleton told you.”
“Appleton told me. It was a disconcerting discovery, to say the least. To find out you’re someone’s pet.”
“Or that that was how Charles saw you.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the difference?”
“There’s a big difference between actually being someone’s pet and being secretly regarded by them in that light. In the first case, you’re in a position of actual subservience.”
“It just strikes me as rather sinister.”
She put her feet together under the table, ready to stand. “Everyone has secret dreams and agendas regarding the people with whom they’re surrounded. You, for example, and – me.”
He chortled. “What are my secret dreams and agendas concerning you? Or is it the other way around?”
“As you said when I arrived, you’ve yet to fully dismiss the prospect that our friendship can ever become more than a friendship. It can’t.”
“It’s only just beginning. Let’s not set limits to it, in advance. Not at this stage.”
“I’m not setting limits to it. There are limits to it.”
“No, the future’s an open book.”
She heard her voice rise a fraction of a decibel. “Let’s ‘cut the crap’, as the Americans say. Is that really why you brought me here tonight? To seduce me?”
“Seducing you, if that’s my aim, would have to be a long-term project. As I said, I’ve booked your taxi home.”
She stood up. “I think I should go now, to be honest. Tonight is getting us nowhere.”
“But you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not that hungry. I don’t see how else you’re going to get the message. I’m not available. And I’m not about to become available. Not to you, anyway.”
“To – to who, then?”
“Stop pretending to want to be my friend, that’s all.”
“It isn’t a pretence.”
“Good night, Thanongsak.”
“Stop. What – I mean, if you’re determined to leave, what about the taxi? Sit down, I’ll call you the taxi.”
“I’ll walk, thank you.”
She strode out, plucking her coat off the hook on the way. She felt a surge of relief as the night air hit her. There was a slight wind blowing, but no clouds in the sky, so no reason to think it would rain. She put her coat on, buttoned it up and began the long plod home.
As soon as he heard the front door slam, Thanongsak knew he had no option but to follow her. She might be attacked. He couldn’t allow that. Breaking her resistance was an extended venture but he was brimming with confidence. Potentially, she was his. Even more so, after what had just happened.
He changed into some dark clothes then pulled on a pair of trainers so she wouldn’t hear his footsteps. He picked up his front door key and let himself silently onto the street.
He could just make her out at the end of the road. She was hugging her coat to her and trailing a few wisps of hair. He thrust his hands in his pockets and picked up his pace. He knew the way back to Black Gables by heart so the only way he could lose her was if she took a wrong-turning without him noticing and became lost herself.
It was a cloudless night and the moon blazed in the sky like a sun. Yet it didn’t take him long to realise she was taking a detour. Either that, or she was lost. Instead of bypassing the village, she went right into the heart of it. Oddly, not only did she not look lost but her step was purposeful.
He only realised what was happening when the truth was on top of him. She turned into - Edward’s road. She hesitated before his house then walked up to his front door and let herself in.
His heart was pounding. Edward’s upstairs light came on then went off again. His body felt as if it was turning to adrenalin and he became giddy with a serene murderousness.
Eventually, he regained enough composure to think clearly. Seduction was for the long-term. The earlier he knew what to factor in, the quicker it would be. Thus, he’d just had a happy accident. No cause for despondency, quite the reverse.
He listened for the sound of their lovemaking. But he could hear nothing but the breeze.
It was time for him to go home.
