CHAPTER 28
Have you ever been bitten by swarms of mosquitoes with needle-like teeth? If James hadn’t appeared when he did, I swear, by morning, there’d have been nothing left of me other than my phone and my Nikes.
My holiday home, the wooden shed at the Happy Life, was not free of them either, and by morning, still dehydrated and with a throbbing headache, I was convinced I’d caught malaria.
I showered, and in the absence of antimalaria medicine, I dabbed shaving cream on my scars and left a general message for the world. “Totally fucked” allowed for plenty of interpretations without loss of reputation. Then I wandered into the town to find a 7-Eleven and something for breakfast. Pepsi and a couple of buns with a green polyester upholstery filling did the trick.
I then strolled back to the Happy Life to decide what to do about James. To deliberately forget the invitation and move out was a temptation, but a feeling of guilt troubled me, so I lay with a wet towel across my head to think. I must have fallen to sleep because I then had one of those fever-driven hallucinations that early explorers in darkest Africa are supposed to have experienced.
With my genes, you’d think I’d have inherited some natural immunity for those things but no. James appeared before me sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed, pointing at me with a dirty fingernail and asking streams of questions in his American accent through a curtain of grey hair. “Are you a happy man? Did your phone see anything today? Did it marvel at the sky, the clouds, the lake, the trees?”
Fortunately, by midday, my brain had cleared, so I took another shower, drank more water, and sat on my bed. There was nothing on my phone, and my fingers were far too fat and sticky to play my game. So I tossed the darned thing onto the pillow from where it gently slid onto the floor. Then, with a prevailing sense of duty about James, I left to find the lake.
For some reason, I’d expected him to be there already, but the place was deserted and, being away from the town, the cars, the trucks, and the motorcycles, it was quiet with hardly a breath of wind. Perhaps it’s true about mad dogs and Englishmen being the only creatures that go out in the midday sun, but perhaps we should now add third-generation Africans as well.
I heard a bird in the treetops but couldn’t see it. It wasn’t a toucan. They were big. And it didn’t sound like the pigeons that pecked in the gutter around McDonalds and KFC in Edmonton. I sat in the shade and saw a fish jump, and I examined a red dragonfly that perched on my Nikes and twisted its head around to look at me. I even watched a line of brown ants making their way along a dry stick. They seemed organised, like soldiers. I’d never watched ants before. I watched one stop and cause a traffic jam behind and thought of Friggin who would open the window of the truck in traffic jams and sing “Hoochie Koochie Man” at the top of his voice to the rest of the jam whilst thumping his fist on the door. Then I watched a white butterfly with orange tips on its wings.
And I suddenly felt at ease with the silence that surrounded me. This was why I’d come—to watch butterflies, birds, trees, flowers, and ants quietly getting on with their natural lives away from the ugliness of people. I don’t know how long it lasted, but I’d have been quite content if it lasted all day, at least until nightfall and the emergence of those mosquitoes.
“Good afternoon, Kurt.”
I hadn’t heard him coming, but there he was strolling towards me like a giraffe in the same orange trousers and khaki vest as yesterday. His hair was tied back today, and I got a better view of the creases that spread from the corner of his eyes. He was a tough, bronzed, and lean-looking geezer with a week’s worth of rough grey stubble and tufts of hair at his armpits and worn leather sandals on his feet. I adjusted my age estimate upwards to fifty plus and then stood straight and tall. “Yeh. Hi,” I said, trying to sound American.
“You see the kingfisher?”
“Uh no, but there were butterflies and some big white birds.”
“Cattle egrets,” he said. “Did you get your beer last night?”
“Water. But I slept well,” I lied.
Then we sat side by side overlooking the lake, with James cross-legged, me with my legs out straight, unsure what to expect next. I’d only come because I felt I owed him some thanks for saving me. I decided to get it off my chest. “Thanks for last night,” I said. “Not used to the heat.”
He didn’t react but said, “Why come here, Kurt?”
“I got off the bus too soon,” I said with acute embarrassment. I fumbled in my bag for nothing as a distraction, but then I felt like an old woman with a shopping bag.
“I meant, why come to Thailand?”
“Oh yeh. To get away. Change of scenery. Know what I mean?” I pulled my bottle of water from the bag. “Water?”
He waved it away. “Where are you staying?”
“Happy Life Resort.”
“Cool. It’s usually empty. Where were you planning to go before getting off the bus too soon?”
“Nakhon Si Thammarat.”
“Still planning to go?”
“Maybe,” I replied. “Where do you stay?”
“I rent a place.”
“You’re American?”
“Sure. Virginia. I told you yesterday.”
“Oh yeh. I forgot. When do you go back?”
“No plans.”
I was a little mystified by that reply. Not only that but I felt strangely vulnerable sitting there with someone who’d been around a bit, seen more, done more, knew more. Was he dangerous? He certainly looked fit, but he was none too clean. Now and again, I caught a whiff of stale sweat, and his hair looked as if it hadn’t seen shampoo in weeks.
“So where’s home, Kurt?”
“London, Edmonton. Know it?”
He shook his head. “Travelling alone?”
I nodded.
“You work back home?”
Should I say I emptied trash bins? No. “Field staff. Haringey Council,” I said.
James nodded. “City guys normally go to Bangkok or Phuket or Pattaya for the action.”
“I wanted some peace and quiet.”
“Cool. What’s your background?”
“What do you mean?”
“Got family back there?”
“My ma’s close by.”
James fumbled in the back pocket of his orange trousers and pulled out a leather tobacco pouch, a pack of Rizla, and a lighter. “Smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
He gave a creasy smile. “It’s only tobacco.”
He filled a sheet, rolled it, licked the edge, tapped it on his knee, stuck it between his lips, lit it, returned the pouch to his pocket, and turned to blow the first puff of smoke away from me. “Don’t often see smart black guys down this way,” he said, breathing the balance of the smoke lingering in his lungs over me.
I didn’t know that, but in any case, what did it matter? “I’ve never been abroad before,” I said. “Never had a holiday before.”
Once said, it felt inferior, as if I should have been able to say I’d hiked all the way through Europe, the Middle East, and India to get there.
“Meeting anyone?”
“I’m on my own. On purpose.” That was better. It sounded confident, like I knew a thing or two. I glanced at James dragging on his self-made that looked and smelled more like a roll of lavatory paper.
“You wanna see Nakhon Si Thammmarat?”
“It’s why I came,” I said.
“Let’s go.” And with that, he sprang to his feet and strolled away. So I, too, got up and then followed him back to the road. He took a side road, with rows of wooden Thai houses on either side. At the iron gate leading to one of them, he produced a key from his pocket, pressed something, and the gate opened. “Wait here.”
As a scruffy brown dog came to sniff my legs, there was the sound of a big motorbike engine, and James emerged astride a hefty-looking black Yamaha with high handlebars and low seats. The gate shut. “Jump on.”
I’m not sure how I felt at that moment, but I jumped on and, with a roar like an army tank, was carried off, clinging to the back of James’s sweaty tee shirt with his ponytail flapping in my face. But I did remember my phone.
“Can we call at the Happy Life for my phone?”
“You really need that darned thing?”
Again, I wasn’t sure. The trouble was I’d grown used to having it. It was, just as James had described, a piece of technology that had become part of me. I was saved by James. “OK, we pass that way anyway.”
I found it on the floor by the bed. It was switched off, but when I turned it back on, it chirped at me to show it was still alive, but there wasn’t time to check it. James was waiting.
Nothing more was said until James parked the bike at the centre of Nakhon Si Thammarat, stuffed the keys in his back pocket, and walked off down a side street. “You fancy a coffee, Kurt?”
I would have preferred water, but I followed him to what resembled a café bar made of old dark wood. Climbing plants wound themselves around chairs and tables on the street, and Thai music played inside amongst a scattering of round tables and chairs. “Sit.” I sat on a seat on the pavement. “What’ll you have?”
For unknown reasons, I didn’t like to say I only wanted water. I said, “Coffee’s fine.”
***
How suddenly can life change? As James disappeared inside to order, all I did was glance at my phone. There were two messages, one from Kevin and one from Walid.
“Cass is in Thailand,” Walid’s message said. “He’s in trouble. Call me or Kevin.”
Kevin’s message was longer. “Remember Cass? He went to Turkey two years ago. Got into deep shit. He was abducted. He was even in Syria with all that ISIL and Al Qaida shit. It was Khan. Remember that shit bastard? Shit Khan got him abducted. Long story, but he’s in Thailand. Any chance you can find him?”
My first reaction was that this was a typical Kevin message. He’d never use words like shit if you spoke to him, but everything was shit in a text. So I reread Walid’s.
Were they both crazy? Where would I start? What did Coolie always say? “You fink I’m kolo, man?”
I started to tap. “You think I’m . . .” But I deleted it because I started to think more constructively. What was going on here? If this was true, then it was serious and—
I didn’t get too far with my thinking because James was returning with a tray, two cups of black coffee and two glasses of water. I rested the phone on my knee as James sat down. “Best espresso place I know,” he said, and then he looked at me. “What’s up, Kurt? You look like you’ve just seen your worst enemy.”
“I just had a message from two mates,” I said. “Another mate of ours is also in Thailand. I didn’t know, but he’s in a spot of trouble.”
James’s hair had come undone, and I watched him rewind it into the elastic band and look at me. I didn’t say anything else but glanced down and reread Kevin’s message. It was the mention of ISIL and Al Qaida that shocked me. Everyone had heard of Al Qaida and watched the video of Osama Bin Laden’s villa being attacked. That was generally regarded as a real cool piece of work. But ISIL wasn’t so clear cut because we’d also watched ISIL beheadings. These were something else completely. Walid understood it better and often talked about it. He had, after all, been close to the action, and it had killed his mother for God’s sake, but if you’d asked me to explain ISIL or ISIS or Daesh or whatever they called themselves, I’d have struggled. Murdering and crazy thugs were the closest description without resorting to words far worse than shit.
We all knew about the Twin Towers horror. We’d lived through London bombings, and we’d all read about young Moslem guys heading out that way to join up, but unless you were a Moslem and so inclined, it was hard to understand why. Anger and hatred played a big part, but Cass had never fitted that mould. To me, Cass was the least likely to disappear and join up. It was well known at school that Cass avoided going to the mosque if he could. It was a running joke. Winston would say something like, “Imam put the Christmas decorations up yet, then Cass?”
And Cass would grin and comeback with something like, “Oh sure. Don’t tell anyone, but he wants me to be the fairy on the top of his tree.” And we’d laugh and high five.
I re-read Walid’s message. “Cass is in Thailand. He’s in trouble.” Then I reread Kevin’s about that shit Khan. I knew who Khan was, of course. It was the same Khan who we’d rented the Shipley Street house from and who I used to hide from behind the sofa with my mother. “Tell him I’m out, Kurt.” My description to Walid that Park Road was run by Pakistani mafia held firm.
Kevin’s message said, “Any chance you can find him?”
Frankly speaking, I barely knew where I was myself. All I knew was I was down south on the right-hand side somewhere near the sea, but the country was huge. What hope was there?
In the background, I heard James say, “Got any details, Kurt?” I looked across at him and took the plunge, handed him my phone, and watched him read the messages whilst calmly sipping his coffee. Then, to my surprise, he leaned forward, reached for his back pocket, and pulled out the coolest-looking metallic blue iPhone I’d ever seen.
“Essential business,” he said like an apology and stood up holding my Samsung in one hand and the iPhone to his ear. For a minute or two, he strolled about the street then returned, handed me back my phone, sat down, drained his coffee, and wiped his mouth. I waited.
“Interesting,” he said before rolling another joint.
I tell you, the guy was really starting to gnaw at my patience. It was my phone, my information, and my mates, for God’s sake. As I watched, he lit the joint and then sat back, as if waiting for something to happen. It did. His phone bleeped, and he tapped and swiped and then held out the phone for me to see. “Is this Cass?”
Jeez, I thought. What is this?
On the screen was a passport-type photo of a young man with bushy black hair and a beard, so I shook my head. “Cass never had a beard.”
“What about this one?”
This time, it was an out-of-focus photo of a young man without a beard, and I stared at it because, yes, it looked a bit like Cass. “I’ve not seen Cass for a couple of years,” I said. “It could be him.”
“What’s your phone number?”
I told him.
“I’ll send the photos to you. Forward them to your friends, Kevin and Walid, and ask them to check if it’s him.”
It took five minutes, but as soon as I’d sent it, a dreadful thought crossed my mind. Who the hell was this unkempt American hippy with the cool motorbike and iPhone? Could I trust him?