‘You don’t think Didier would’ve wanted it that way?’
‘Maybe, but I’m pretty sure Sanga’s family would feel differently,’ Jayne said. ‘The young woman—Veera, the one I’ve been talking to—says she’s Nou’s fiancée.’
Max didn’t press for details, but later Jayne filled him in over drinks in the bar of their hotel. According to Veera, the betrothal had taken place seven years ago, and they were only waiting for Nou to earn enough money before they married and started a family.
Jayne reckoned Nou probably agreed to the engagement to keep his parents happy, but Max was troubled. Had Didier known about this? And could this have been behind his own desire to have children? Max still felt guilty about having interfered in Didier’s plans.
‘You know Didier wanted to have children with you,’ he said.
Jayne held onto a lungful of smoke longer than usual. ‘Really?’ she said, breathing out. ‘How do you know?’
‘He told me,’ Max said, ‘but I…I warned him off telling you. I told him it wouldn’t be fair on you, but I was jealous and…’ Without intending to, he started to cry. ‘I’m sorry, Jayne.’
She rested her cigarette in the ashtray, patted his arm and passed him a paper serviette. ‘It’s OK, Max. I’m flattered Didier felt that way. Really. Thanks for telling me. But you’re right—it wouldn’t be fair on me. It wouldn’t be fair to ask me to be a parent when what I really want to be is a partner, a lover.’
‘Oh?’ he sniffed. This veiled criticism was at odds with Jayne’s fierce loyalty towards Didier and Max felt he was missing something.
‘Does this change of heart have anything to do with your friend the Federal Police agent?’
‘No,’ Jayne blushed and looked away. ‘That didn’t work out.’ She was about to take another drag of her cigarette, when a look of panic flashed across her face. ‘Listen, Max, promise me you won’t mention that AFP guy to anyone.’
‘Why?’
‘Please. I’ll tell you the whole story once I’m sure he’s left the country. But in the meantime, promise not to tell anyone, OK?’
Max wouldn’t normally have let her get away with it. But after all she’d been through, the least he could do was respect her privacy.
He hadn’t known what to expect when he flew up from Bangkok to meet her. She looked terrible, although that was partly because she’d dyed her hair and it didn’t suit her at all. She hugged him tightly, admitted she was tired, but brushed off his concerns.
She remained dry-eyed at the morgue and applied herself with businesslike efficiency to organising the funeral—though he took it as a good sign when she dyed her hair back to its normal colour.
At the funeral, it struck Max that anyone who didn’t know better would assume Jayne was Didier’s widow. She greeted most of the mourners by name and introduced Max as the ceremony’s benefactor. He recognised some of the guests from Jayne’s report: Deng, who ran the bar behind the Night Bazaar; Mana, whom police cited as a witness in their report; and Pairoj, aka Marilyn. Jayne also introduced Bom and Deh, and the two boys blushed with pride as she explained their role in Didier’s acquittal.
It was an extraordinary story—a real coup on Jayne’s part to have put it all together—and Max still hoped to use the information in some way. Jayne was adamant about not releasing it to the press—there was a young policeman’s widow to protect—though there were other avenues available to him. Diplomatic channels. Opportunities for an informal dinner with Thai government officials. Max felt he owed it to Jayne and to Didier to give it a try.
The funeral attracted a large crowd and Jayne was heartened by the turnout: if the Thais believed Didier had killed Nou, they wouldn’t have come to farewell his spirit. Max had contacted Didier’s university colleagues, while Jayne sent word out among his friends. The local grapevine accounted for the rest.
Jayne wore a crimson pah biang sash over her white blouse and black skirt out of respect for Didier’s love of Thai culture. Marilyn turned up in an ankle-length black dress and patent leather stilettos, complemented by a beaded handbag and matching pillbox hat with tulle veil. As all the other mourners had opted for the traditional white, Marilyn stood out like a bee on a jasmine vine, providing Jayne with a rare moment of levity for the day.
They’d chosen to give Didier a Buddhist funeral. Didier was brought up Roman Catholic, but they felt their friend would have wanted a Thai ceremony. Max made a generous donation to Wat Phrapaeng to secure the services of its monks, and Jayne chose the casket, a red and white box she ordered from a specialist stall.
She also had a photograph of Didier enlarged and framed in black, to be displayed throughout the service. It was from a picture he’d kept by his bedside table, him and Nou on holiday on Koh Samui. A week in the sun had turned Didier’s skin to burnished gold and he was looking at the camera, eyes smiling, easily mistaken for someone without a care in the world.
The monks, swathed in saffron-coloured robes, their shaved heads smooth as doorhandles, began the rites by gathering in a circle and chanting over Didier’s body. The abbot dipped what looked like a large paintbrush into a silver bowl of scented water and blessed the dead and everyone present by flicking the water over their heads. At this point, the white-robed Buddhist nuns checked the body in the casket. The monks kept up the chanting as the coffin was carried to the temple courtyard and placed under a shelter made of palm branches. Hours later, they were sitting on the lawn, still chanting, as people fell into line to pay their respects to Didier.
The casket was designed for the body to sit in upright, like an enclosed throne, with Didier’s photo propped on one side and a pyre below. Before the cremation took place, mourners were invited to leave offerings, gifts to accompany Didier into the afterlife.
In deference to his friend’s Catholic past, Max had transcribed the words of Psalm 23, adding it to the pile as the procession circled around the casket. Among the flowers, incense, candles and sweets, Jayne placed her gift, a copy of the Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely.
She choked back tears as the procession finished—her grief would keep until she was out of the public eye—and the time came to light the fire. Jayne walked over to Max, the photograph of Didier under one arm. She placed her free hand on his shoulder.
‘They want you to do it,’ she said, gesturing towards the coffin.
Max stared at her in alarm. Her eyes were clear and her voice was steady.
‘Everyone knows you paid for the funeral, Max, and they’re very grateful. I know it’s difficult, but it’s a real honour to be asked. Can you manage it?’
He straightened his shoulders beneath her touch. ‘Will you come with me?’
She nodded and took his hand. They walked slowly towards the funeral pyre. A monk stepped forward and offered a flaming torch to Max.
‘Rest in peace, my friend,’ Max whispered as he held the torch against the kindling.
Before the flames reached the casket, he let go of Jayne’s hand, turned and walked out of the temple grounds.
She was alone by the time the fire died down. Most guests had left for Man Date where Deng had arranged for the monks to perform another ceremony to prevent Nou’s ghost from haunting him. Nalissa had gone to work, but told Jayne she would join the wake at the Lotus Inn, an idea of Marilyn’s which promised to be as spectacular a tribute to Didier as the funeral had been a solemn one.
Within a few days, the monks would put Didier’s ashes in an urn and inter it in a small concrete stupa in the temple compound, after which she and Max would return to Bangkok. Before she returned to the hotel to check on him, she had one thing left to do.
Jayne stooped to scrape a handful of warm ashes into an envelope. She attracted curious looks from the wat’s young novices, but no one tried to stop her. She placed the envelope carefully in her backpack and walked to the street to hail a tuk-tuk.
‘The Lamphun Road,’ she said to the driver.
‘You want to go all the way
to Lamphun?’
‘Mai chai,’ she shook her head. ‘Just drive along the road. I’ll tell you when to stop.’
The Chiang Mai-Lamphun Road ran along the east bank of the Mae Ping, affording Jayne a view of the town at its finest. The spires of its numerous wats sparkled gold in the late-afternoon sun, the river was liquid copper and the distant mountains lavender.
People sauntered along the riverbank: school children in uniform; young men wearing baseball caps; mothers with toddlers learning to walk. Among them was a Yao woman in an indigo turban and tunic with ruffles of red wool. As the tuk-tuk passed, Jayne saw the red pom-poms of a baby’s cap peeking out from a sling on the woman’s back. It struck her that while Chiang Mai might have an ugly side, the light that afternoon was at its most flattering.
‘Pai loei mai?’ The driver’s voice cut into her thoughts.
‘Yes, keep going,’ she said.
He veered left where the road turned away from the river and within minutes reached the place Jayne was looking for: a stretch lined with yang trees, transformed into Buddhist shrines to prevent them from being cut down. On their last night together she’d seen Didier gazing at a picture, his face lighting up at the sight of those trees.
She asked the tuk-tuk driver to pull over and wait. She crossed the road and deliberated for a moment before choosing a tree with generous shade and an orange sash of modest size around its trunk. She wedged incense sticks and a single candle into the dirt and lit them with her cigarette lighter. Next she emptied the packet of Didier’s ashes into the palm of her right hand and carefully poured a circle around the base of the tree. Then she squatted in front of the smoking incense and candle.
‘Look, Didier, I know I’m supposed to pray or chant or something,’ she said, ‘but you know I don’t go in for that stuff. I’m only doing this because—’
She hesitated, cleared her throat.
‘I’m doing this because we never had a chance to say goodbye.’
Her voice cracked and the tears she’d held back all day streamed down her cheeks. She let them fall.
A pool of wax formed at the base of the candle.
‘I’ll always miss you,’ she whispered. ‘But I have to let you go.’
She looked up at the stretch of trees.
‘And I thought this was the best place to leave you.’
Jayne gathered her things and stood up. She straightened her shoulders, turned, and walked away without looking back.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks first and foremost to Andrew Nette, my lover, friend and travelling companion, greatest champion and toughest critic, who read more versions of this book than anyone else and provided loving and practical support every step of the way.
Thanks also to my friend, mentor and partner in crime Christos Tsiolkas, for passionate encouragement and helpful feedback.
While I accept responsibility for all faults and flaws, this is a much better book for the expert advice and support of Melanie Ostell at Text Publishing. I’d thank her profoundly except that she’s eradicated adverbs from my writing.
I appreciate the help of all those involved in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for encouraging this book with the award for unpublished manuscript in 2004.
A number of friends and peers were roped in as readers at various stages in the writing process and include Diana Baker, Susan Fry, Dimity Hawkins, Cath Keaney (who provided an adulterated version of her surname to the main character), Dr Jane Maree Maher (ditto for the character’s first name), Helen Morgan and Julian Savage.
I’m grateful to my other brother Luke, whose vast general knowledge was an invaluable resource; and to my parents Olgamary and Haydn for giving me the confidence to think I could write books in the first place.
Thanks also to: Greg Carl for taking me to the bars behind the Night Bazaar; Kathryn Sweet for checking Thai transliterations; Randall Arnst for translations of the health warnings on Thai cigarette packets; the late Jen Lipman for information on the structure of the Thai police; Sisters in Crime Inc. for giving the thumbs-up to the first Jayne Keeney story; Susan Hampton, my first editor; Haydn Savage and Susan Fry for last-minute research in Chiang Mai (much appreciated); and Richard Fleming for legal advice.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
BEGIN READING
Behind the Night Bazaar Page 23