Everyone Burns (20 page)

“Yes.”

“On the same spot as you discovered the
farang’s body?”

“Exactly the same spot. That’s how I noticed it. Every time I come to see my grandfather I look at the place my father died and say a silent prayer for him.”

“What happened to your family after your father died?”

“Mother and grandfather rowed. Grandfather was very hurt and angry. He hadn’t approved of my father getting involved in politics. He said it was mother’s fault his son had died; that she hadn’t cared for him and comforted him enough after Bangkok; that a ‘real’ wife would have been able to save him. He moved out to this wooden house here, so he could be near my father’s spirit.
Soon after his death, stories began circulating of a flying demon. You know how ignorant and cruel people can be sometimes,” she said bitterly. “Shortly afterwards, grandfather went blind. His eyesight had been failing for some time.”

“How do you and your mother manage?”

“Mother works in a spa, I work in a shop. We sell grandfather’s carved boats. We get by. Every few days I bring supplies to grandfather.”

“And your mother and grandfather still don’t talk?”

“No. Mother would like to make peace but grandfather is stubborn and won’t meet her. It is a great shame. We are the only family he has left.”

I went to the jeep, brought back two bottles of water and handed one to Bee. She had lapsed into silence and I realised how much older than her years she seemed. I imagined what it must be like for a young girl having all that pain turning around in her head from dawn to dusk.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I said. “It can’t have been easy.”

“I don’t know how it helps you,” she replied, “But somehow I’m glad I told you.” She drank from the bottle. “Thank
you
.”

“Bee, did you talk to the policeman about your father’s death?
When they questioned you about the farang?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as a strange coincidence that the farang’s body was burned, like your father’s? That they were found in the same place?”

She shook her head. It was a gesture of hopelessness. “There are so many things that cannot be explained in this life, Mr
. Braddock. After all these years I still don’t understand why my father had to die. How am I expected to understand the death of a stranger? Perhaps the people around here are right after all. Perhaps this place is cursed.”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” I responded. “What can you tell me about the
farang you found?”

She frowned at the memory. “He was lying on his back with his arms at his sides. His body was dreadfully charred, and the smell of burned meat was horrible. There were ants and insects on him. Even I could see he had been dead for some time.” She shivered. “That’s all I saw. That’s all I wanted to see. I thought of my father.” She paused. “Then I called the police.”

“You didn’t see anything else around? No bike, no glass bottles, no … I don’t know what.”

“No. Nothing
. Just the dead man under the coconut trees. That’s all.”

I felt a frustration arise inside me; but it was not due to anything associated with the murders. It was the anger I feel when I see needless suffering: in this case a family at war with itself through hurt, pride and stubbornness. I resolved to do something about it, however ‘interfering’ this might be.

Bee collected her basket and we trudged up the slope to her grandfather’s shack; Red Riding Hood and the Wolf travelling in convoy.

The old man was out on his porch carving a toy boat. He was shirtless and his lap was covered in shavings, some of which stuck to his body which glistened in the sun.

Bee greeted him fondly and Yai visibly relaxed. He must have worried that her encounter with me would leave her upset. She took the basket into the house and began unpacking.

I hunkered down beside the old man and put my hand on his wrist. He stopped carving and turned his sightless eyes towards me. I steeled myself to be a hard-nosed SOB.

I asked him if it were true that he and his daughter-in-law no longer spoke
and he grunted a ‘yes’. Then I told him that he should be very proud of his grand-daughter; that she was a courageous girl; that she had integrity and that she loved him very much. I told him that she had shared with me the painful details of her father’s death and its bitter aftermath.

“Bee met me in the coconut grove,” I said, “
because she didn’t want to talk here and have me stir up memories that would be painful for you. She didn’t want me to upset you.

“However, I am afraid, Yai, that I
am
going to upset you. You are not going to like hearing what I have to say.”

Bee had finished unpacking her basket and was standing in the doorway looking at me with alarm. She began to protest, but the old man silenced her.

“What do you have to say, Mr. Braddock?”

“Just this. Your son is not coming back. There is no demonic spirit haunting the trees. Wasan was a troubled man at the end, but he is not the stuff that evil ghosts are made of. He had courage and he had a sense of justice
. He may not have been able to see it that way, but that’s how it was. His tragedy is that he died needlessly. He fell into the darkness before his time.”

“My son put his beliefs before his family,” said the old man bluntly. “That’s where it all went wrong.”

“So tell me, Yai, how is that any different from what you are doing now?”

“What do you mean?” he asked indignantly.

“I mean that for years you have put your resentment before your family. I mean that you were blind before you ever lost your sight.”

“And what do
you
know of my family?” he shouted angrily. “What gives you – a farang – the right to talk to me like this?”

“I have to be the one to talk to you like this because no-one else
can
. You have hidden yourself away here beyond the reach of family and friends; so that you can be alone with your grief.

“Have you ever stopped to consider your family’s grief? What about your grand-daughter? What about your daughter-in-law? You abandoned them when you came here. You left a widow alone to bring up a child. You could have been a comfort to them instead of nursing your
own
pain and sense of loss.

“Yet in spite of all that, Bee still comes here to you; she cleans for you; brings you food; loves you. Do you not think
she
deserves better?”

Bee put her arms around Yai and wept with him. They were the bitter tears of lost years, and of remorse, and of deeply-buried pain.

“I thought you were a good man,” the girl cried to me. “Why do you say these hurtful things? Do you not think we have suffered enough?”

“On the contrary,” I said, “I think you have suffered too much. All of you. But your suffering is pointless. It has to stop.” I put my hand back on the old man’s wrist and he tried to pull away, but I held fast.

“Yai, listen to me.
You do not need to be blind
. You can still help your family. It is not too late. If you will allow me, I will arrange and pay for the operation to remove the cataracts from your eyes. The procedure is simple and straightforward. It will not cost you a Baht. You can have your sight back in a few days’ time: the surgery can be performed here on Samui.”

Bee looked at me anxiously. “Why would you do that?” she said.

“Why would I
not
?” I answered. “Yai, the doctors can restore your sight, but that is all they can do. That is the easy part. What happens after that is up to you.”

Bee and I looked at the old man. I wasn’t sure how he would respond. Bee whispered something in his ear and hugged him
. He nodded to her and she said, “Grandfather agrees.”

Yai rose unsteadily without acknowledging me, and took himself back into the shack. He had a lot to think about
.

“You will have to give him some space,” I said to Bee. “He is a proud man. This is not easy for him.”

She shook her head and examined my face closely, as if trying to resolve a contradiction in her mind. “You believe in hard medicine, Mr. Braddock.”

“I believe in what works,” I replied. “My assistant, Miss Da, will call you tomorrow and start making arrangements with one of the local hospitals. Don’t worry,” I went on, “I will make good on my promise. But tell me, I’m curious. What did you say to him just now to get him to agree?”

“I asked him if he wanted to see my face.”

*       *       *       *       *

I once visited a coffee factory in Bali which produces
kopi luwak
, a premium coffee that retails at about a thousand US dollars per kilo. The process employed is rather interesting. Civet cats are fed with the choicest coffee berries. While the berries are in the cat’s stomach, the fleshy pulp is digested and enzymes mix with the beans – which makes them aromatic and less bitter. Ten to twelve hours later, the cats excrete the beans which are then washed, dried, roasted, bagged and sold on to coffee connoisseurs, many of whom probably have no idea they are drinking
hot civet shit
.

I mention this because working on my relationship with my father in some ways resembles the
kopi luwak process – it is like trying to make something valuable out of cat poo: possible in theory, but unlikely in practice.

In the first place, my father, Edward James Braddock, is one of those people who have fallen under the poisonous
and incurable spell of the Protestant Work Ethic. As a result of this, it is impossible for anyone – especially me – to work hard enough to satisfy Braddock Senior’s exacting standards.
Consequently we are all wastrels
. (When I dropped out of university this was made abundantly clear to me.)

Secondly, he is an entrepreneur par excellence. Everything to which he has turned his hand has subsequently turned to gold; whether it was plantations in post-World War II Malaya, property, car dealerships, import-export, or whatever. Accordingly, he has a mind like a
metal trap and the unforgiving memory of an elephant. Whatever the subject, he is always three steps ahead. I can’t keep up.

Since we are not exactly close, conversations with him are always difficult. He is not the most family-centred of men, although he has an obvious soft spot for Katie and is devoted to Nang – his second wife and my step-mother.

My father and Nang’s marriage is just about the strongest one I know. This is somewhat ironic given that Nang is Thai and my business is based on the premise that farang-Thai relationships don’t work.

Nang’s personality is a fascinating combination of steel and fluff. She has kicked my backside when necessary; but she has also been a real mother to me following the death of my own mother while I was still very young. Tragedy has dogged her own attempts at motherhood and after two stillborn baby girls, the risks to her physical and mental health were too great to continue trying for a family, however much Mr
. and Mrs. Braddock might want one. Nang had borne this blow with fortitude. For me, strength of character coupled with femininity makes for a winning and attractive combination. It’s not surprising my father fell for her. If I’d been twenty years older, I would have too. She’s now in her sixties and still looks pretty good.

So this afternoon when I phoned the old sod on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, I was pleased when Nang answered.

“David! How is my handsome boy?”

“Still handsome, Nang. How is my favourite, most elegant, and not-at-all-evil stepmother?”

She laughed.

“And how is the elderly curmudgeon today? Still drowning kittens and tearing the wings off butterflies?”

“David, don’t be so naughty. Wait a moment and I will get your father. He’ll be so happy to hear from you.”

He so won’t
. The line went silent for a while then there was a click followed by Edward Braddock’s gravelly, measured tones. “Hello, David, good of you to call.”

“Happy birthday,
Dad.”

“Thank you. Kind of you to remember.”

“Are you and Nang doing anything special to celebrate? I mean, seventy-five is a big one.”

“Indeed it is. We’ll be opening a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne at
Thorogood’s later.”

“Excellent.”

There was a silence. Our conversations tend to be punctuated by them: the forced jollity collapses and it takes a while to pump it up again. I half-expect the talk to veer towards the indefatigable topic of ‘when-are-you-coming-home-to-do-a-proper-job’, but my father has clearly decided to be unusually restrained on his birthday.

“Katie phoned,” he said. “She sent me flowers, of all things. A sweet thought.”

“It was.”

“So when do you next expect to be back in England?”

And so the words limped out in their own stilted way, like verbal gimps, until we could decently put our phones down and heave a sigh of relief that we wouldn’t have to speak again for some time.