“Only joking. I’m happy for you to go and I’m happy to stay here. All alone, while you’re out going everywhere in Bangkok. Boring old Bangkok. While I live in up in Baan Suay, the only place I’ve ever lived without a pub.”
Now she knew he was joking. Maybe speaking the truth in jest, but that was his way. He didn’t mind her going and didn’t mind staying at home.
“OK, thank you my dear. I’ll let Soom have a shower and then ring her with the good news. I am really looking forward to it. Isn’t it exciting? We haven’t been separated for more than a few hours for eight years.”
He had had his little joke, so he didn’t push his luck. He just smiled back at her. He was wondering if he could get his friend Murray to come around and take him out in the car. He had never explored the local village ‘bars’ – if there were any.
Just as Lek was about to phone her daughter, Nong came running out.
“Lek! Lek! There has been an accident. Mrs. Ng just told me that a petrol tanker has knocked two local ladies off their motorcycle in the lane. One is dead and the other has less than a ten percent chance of pulling through. Who is it?”
“Oh, how awful! But how would I know? I’ve been sitting here for the last hour.” She told Craig about the accident.”
“But no-one knows who they are?”
“I think some people know, but we don’t know,” she replied, wondering whom she could phone to find out who the victims were.
Nong spoke up after making a phone call. It never took her long to know the local gossip, it was why she was always busy, people called in for groceries and to find out what was going on. In the absence of a local paper or radio station, Nong was the repository of all local knowledge.
“One was that young Mrs. Ma who lives... lived just round the corner. The one with two young children and another on the way. She’s the one that died outright and the other one was your next-door neighbour, Joy. They’d been out shopping apparently and were coming back through the lane when BANG! Head on into a petrol tanker making deliveries around the villages.
“He was actually due here, but was redirected down the lane by road-workers. The driver is beside himself with grief. The doctor had to sedate him. Joy is in hospital, but she was dragged a little way by the truck so she’s in a very bad way. They think she’ll die. Just a ten percent chance of pulling through.”
Craig couldn’t follow much of the conversation, but he could see other women gathering at the shop to discuss it. When Lek started explaining to Craig, Nong darted off, anxious to tell the others what she knew and maybe learn a few more details.
When Lek got up to join the other women, Craig slipped into the shop and helped himself to another Chang. He knew that there would be no decent service for at least an hour and he didn’t mind helping out. Eagle-eyed Nong spotted him in her peripheral vision and nodded him her consent.
Craig was roused from his daydreams, by a collective sharp intake of breath, but he could guess what had happened.
When she had all the information there was to be had, Lek rejoined Craig. “Joy just died too. Isn’t that just awful? Ma had two young children and was just pregnant with a third and Joy, well, she is or was a grandmother, but only fifty years old and looking after her daughter’s baby... and her husband’s not well. I know you don’t like him much, but you used to get on well with Joy, didn’t you?”
“Yes..., we never actually spoke because we couldn’t, but when she saw me sitting here she always used to shout ‘go home’. I used to like to think that she meant ‘go home to your wife’ and not ‘go back to Britain’. She probably didn’t know any other words in English. Yes, I liked her... she used to ask me to dance at parties, remember?”
“Yes, I liked her too. You realise what this means, eh? I won’t be going to Bangkok this weekend. Not if they have the normal seven-day ceremony. Still, Bangkok will still be there next week, so no rush.
“Perhaps, Soom ought to come back to pay her respects. She has known Joy all her life. I must phone her now. Are you all right for ten minutes?” She inspected his bottle, “OK, I’ll get you a fresh one first. I think I’ll have one too. It’s no good waiting for Nong, I’ll get them myself.”
As soon as Lek had sat down, she was back on the phone to Soom.
“Soom can’t come back until Friday. She finishes early on Fridays and can cancel her..., what name did you say again? Her ‘tutorial’ on Saturday morning, then, if she goes back on Sunday afternoon, she won’t miss any classes, so that’s all right, isn’t it? Maybe I could go back with her. Couldn’t I?”
“Well, obviously you could, but you won’t see much of her during the week and if you only get to see her every few months, why use up your visit so soon after she has come home? Why not leave it a month and then go down? That way you see her twice in two months. Sounds better to me.”
”Yes, maybe you are right. We’ll see what happens.”
“Well, when Soom goes back, Joy’s funeral will not yet be over, so that is another reason to put it off for a while. Look, I’m not trying to stop you going... I know that it is going to happen one day, but I want you to get the maximum effect from your visits. That is all. Think about it.”
There was no longer a bristle of gossip among the twenty or so women gathered at the shop, they had become hushed. Talking in whispers out of respect for the double fatality. Two women, one in her twenties and one just turned fifty dead, killed not a hundred metres from the safety of their homes by a truck that shouldn’t have been there, that had never travelled that route before. Two husbands and three children left behind and one baby dead with its mother, still unborn.
People talked in hushed voices about who or what had sent the petrol tanker to kill these women and wreck the peace of their families for months, years and decades to come. People talked of never going down the lane at night again lest they should come across the ghosts of Joy and Ma walking back and fore along that isolated lane doomed forever to keep trying to get home to their children.
When they left Nong’s at seven o’clock it was already beginning to get dark. Lek clung to Craig’s arm, petrified that she would meet Joy looking for someone to take care of her family in her absence. When they entered their garden, they could see the family gathering next door.
One group of men were putting out rows of chairs, erecting awnings and blocking the lane to cars, while another group were setting up the P.A. that would relay the monks’ ceremony to those sitting outside and play the funeral music.
They had already brought Joy back from the hospital and half a dozen older women were preparing her body to lie in the refrigerated casket, which would be its final resting place for its last seven days on Earth.
“I want to go to Bangkok now, Craig. I am scared. What can I say to Joy, if I see her with her head smashed in and she asks me to help take care of her family?”
“She never hurt you when she was alive, did she? So why do you think she is going to try now?
“If you meet her, just say ‘Hello’ and if she asks you to take care of her family, tell you can’t because you’re going on holiday to Bangkok soon. I’m sure she’ll understand. She’s not stupid and has family nearby anyway. Advise her to ask them. Tell her I’m a handful.”
“You are never serious. This is serious...”
“Hold on a minute. OK, I like to joke, I accept that, but I am being serous about Joy. If she asks you, just tell her that you are too busy to do a good job. Tell her to ask someone else. What’s wrong with that? That is what you would have said if she had asked you yesterday when she was alive, so why not say it now? Nothing has changed except she hasn’t got a body any more.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Oh, my Buddha. I won’t sleep for a week until she’s gone. I know it. Oh, my Buddha...”
“Look at it this way. With all the worry, sleepless nights and helping out next door, you will probably loose those extra pounds you have been putting on, won’t you?”
“Oh, thank you very much. I’m scared and depressed and you call me fat!”
“Joke, my dear. Just a joke.”
She tried to smile.
“But, it might work. Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say,” he added as he nipped into his office.
Lek was truly worried about Joy’s ghost, or ‘Pi’ in Thai. She had been to hundreds of funerals before but never because of such a violent, unexpected death involving a close neighbour and friend. She went next door to pay her final respects before the monks arrived at about seven thirty.
After the four monks had performed their duties for the first day, which took about thirty minutes, a rushed meal was passed around those who remained behind - about fifty people. It was a very quiet affair compared to average funerals – the whole village was in deep shock. Nobody liked to voice their thoughts about the evil spirit that had caused the petrol tanker to be in the lane and to kill, on its one and only rerouting down there, two women who had made that journey hundreds of times safely before.
Attendees at the funeral wanted to get home early in case there was an evil spirit lurking in the shadows.
When Lek went home at nine o’clock, she had a friend walk her up the drive to her front door even though it was only fifteen yards, the lights were on and Craig was working in his office. He had never seen her that affected by a death – not even that of one of her best friend, Goong, six years before. Goong had died at an even younger age than Joy, but she had been ill for a while, accepted her Fate – even welcomed it - and had had time to sort out her affairs.
She hovered about in Craig’s office, talking incessantly about one thing and another, but mostly about things that she would not normally concern him with. Then it dawned on Craig that Lek was frightened to go to bed alone in the dark. Actually, it was much worse that that, she was even too frightened to shower alone, so Craig did the right thing: he shut his computer down and suggested an early night. Lek leaped at the chance and held on to him tightly all night.
Craig got to sleep with difficulty, as had been the case since he was an infant, but Lek didn’t remember sleeping at all, which was most unlike her. She was waiting for her friend and neighbour to come walking through the wall looking as if she had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
∞
Whatever state of consciousness they were both in, they were immediately aware when the lorry-load of huge speakers roared into life at five a.m. the next day The speakers were less than twenty yards away, but their purpose was to call any women in the whole village who wanted to help prepare food for the evening’s ceremony. This was a cathartic event for people who were grieving. Instead of sitting at home alone while the men were in the fields working, they could sit together, chop, peel and prepare vegetables and meat and generally keep each other company.
Lek jumped out of bed and prepared to join in. There was no way Craig could sleep again, so he just started work. He understood that this had to be done and it didn’t bother him in the slightest. Lek was showered, dressed and out of the house in fifteen minutes, which Craig did resent a little, wanting to ask whether she had seen Joy’s Pi in the night.
Later he was glad that he hadn’t had the opportunity, deciding that it would probably have caused a problem. Sometimes, he just didn’t know when it was inappropriate to make a joke.
