Fireworks to Thailand

by J. R. Bonham

  “What if we moved somewhere that had a granny flat? That might be OK, wouldn’t it? We could probably afford it if we sold her house, but not otherwise,” Geoff tried.

  “Well, I suppose so. I might need to think about it.” Jan wondered if it was worth saying an outright ‘no’ just to be bloody-minded and copy what Geoff would always say to her. She decided it was being too petty and she knew he was worried about his mother. However, she could always hope that there might not be too many houses available with granny flats attached.

  “Have you actually asked her what she wants?” Jan enquired.

  “She wants her own flat so she can keep her independence. She did say that she couldn’t put her name down for sheltered housing in Torquay unless she was living here first. If we moved and she moved in with us, then she would have a much better chance of getting a council flat here. Then I would be able to look after her better with her being nearer. I’m really worried about her. Her health is failing. I know she’s 70, but that’s no age these days. She’s had a hard life, so her expectancy might not be that long.”

  Geoff looked sad about this state of affairs and Jan felt sorry for him. He thought that his mother was his sole responsibility, him being an only child. He had felt the weight of this on his shoulders for some time. His mother had worked all her life until she retired. She had worked in a factory before the war and then helped out at the local farm when the farmhands were called up. When the war ended she worked in a hospital nearby, emptying bedpans and as a general factotum. Then she was a charlady, cleaning big houses for local well-to-do families. Her last job before she retired was as a florist in Shalemouth. This was her favourite job of all. She loved flowers and she was well known for making beautiful flower arrangements. People used to come from miles around to buy their Christmas table decorations from her.

  Geoff and Jan discussed it further and decided that Jan would look at estate agents and see what options there were available to them. She came home with piles of brochures which they pored over that evening. Jan felt happier that at least her mother-in-law still wanted to maintain her independence. With a council flat she could achieve just that but she just needed a little help to start her off by being able to live in the area.

  “There don’t seem to be many houses around with actual granny flats attached. What about an extra bedroom and then she can be part of the family?” Geoff mooted.

  “I don’t think she’d want that. And neither would I, for that matter! She’d want to still have her independence but with us close by if she had a problem.” Jan was trying to be helpful.

  They went to view several houses in the vicinity but none came near to their requirements. Otherwise, the ones which were ideal were far too expensive. As it was, they would have to get a bridging loan until the Shaleham house was sold just to be able to afford a bigger house without a granny flat attached.

  Jan rather liked the idea of moving to a larger house, preferably a detached one with a garden on the level. With Torquay built on seven hills, that was a tall order. But if it gave Betty a foot on the ladder to independent living in a sheltered flat, it was a small price to pay to have her stay with them temporarily. Then after she left, that would give them a better house for themselves to enjoy afterwards.

  As Jan worked for chartered accountants, she took the opportunity of asking one of her bosses what the implications would be once they sold the house in Shaleham. She knew there would be a capital gains tax liability, but she wasn’t sure how big it would be. They had owned the house for nearly ten years and it was worth substantially more than they paid for it. Her boss took all the details and said he would get back to her with answers once he had worked out all the figures.

  Jan was playing tennis one day when a woman she knew told her of a house for sale in her road. The house was at the top of her road, a cul-de-sac, only two roads away from where Jan lived presently. She made an appointment and immediately went to view it with Geoff. It was semi-detached and had been built by the owner’s father. At only about 15 years old it was much more modern than the house they presently owned which had been built in the 1930s.

  It was a chalet style house with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs there was a large sitting room, a dining room, downstairs cloakroom with shower, a kitchen with a breakfast room extension. The back door led on to a level garden which was not overlooked. There was a double garage and a long driveway. Being at the end of a cul-de-sac was good, no one would be driving past and no one would be parking outside, so it would be quite quiet. Ideal.

  They fell in love with it straight away. They thought it could work with Geoff’s mother having one of the bedrooms upstairs as a bed-sitting area or they could even convert the dining room for her if she preferred. They could then make the breakfast room into a kitchen area for her too. The separate loo and shower room downstairs was something they didn’t have in their present house.

  “My boss has looked at all the figures and reckons our capital gains liability would be about £5,000!”

  “God, that’s more than we paid for it! At least we would get the bulk of the money, so we know what we’re looking at and it seems that we can afford this place. We’d have to get a bridging loan, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. At least we have good collateral once we sell Mum’s house.” Geoff was still mulling it over. “I do like it. Do you?”

  “I think it’s great and especially I like the level garden. It’s a nice size sitting room and there’s room for a conservatory too. Everyone seems to be going for conservatories these days, it’s the in thing! First things first! We should take your mum to see it and see if it would work for her.”

  They went and fetched her straight away and showed her the house. They took the children too for their approval.

  “Mmm, well, I don’t know. It’s a lot of work with moving everything,” Betty complained. Jan was annoyed to hear this as she and Geoff would be doing most of the work.

  “Well, if we’re going to do it there’s going to be some upheaval, however we do it,” Jan told Betty. “The question is, do you think it could work for you? You could have one of the bedrooms or, if you prefer, you could have the dining room as a sort of bed-sitting area. Then we could make the breakfast room into your own kitchen with a table to sit at when you don’t want to sit with us. We would have to have a table in the sitting room because the main kitchen isn’t big enough for a table. We wouldn’t have a separate dining room because that would be our bedroom if you chose to have one of the bedrooms upstairs. The house is on the small side I know but we can’t afford anything bigger.”

  “Well, I really don’t know. What do the kids think?” Decisions weren’t her thing.

  “I think they’re upstairs deciding on who is having which bedroom!”

  Neither of the women would have wanted to share their kitchen, so the arrangement of two semi-separate kitchens was ideal. Between the kitchen and breakfast room, there was a large serving hatch so the women would still be able to communicate. If they were talking!

  “Are you going to be able to make a decision this side of Christmas?” Geoff said to his mother, smiling. “This is the best house we’ve seen, and we’ve seen quite a few. The ones with separate granny flats I just don’t think we can afford, even with the extra money from your house.”

  “Well, we’ll have to go ahead then. As soon as I get here, I will ask the council to consider me for one of their flats. I believe there are some in the town centre on the level, so that would be convenient for me. I’d like that. I don’t want to be a burden on you for too long,” Betty decided at long last.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This will take some months to go through but I reckon we could actually be in by Christmas. If we move in first and get it ready for you, you would just have one move, straight in. If we did it the other way around, it would mean you moving to where we are now,
except we haven’t really got the room.”

  “No, that’s fine, I can wait. I’m not desperate. Well, I am, but you know what I mean. I don’t know what I would do otherwise. It’s all worked out well.”

  “We haven’t got it yet! We’ll have to go down to the agents and do some negotiating. You never pay the price that’s asked,” Geoff explained to his mother, who was quite perplexed by the whole situation. She had never been in a position of buying a house or knowing what was involved.

  Geoff and Jan went straight to the agents and made an offer. By the time they got home, they had a call to say it was not accepted. They upped it a little and then it was accepted. The owners had already found a house they liked and were keen to move as soon as possible.

  This all meant it was time to put their own house on the market. There seemed to be so much involved in moving. It was much easier when they were just buying the house they were in without having one to sell. Now they had two to sell and one to buy and a bridging loan to arrange. They wouldn’t put Betty’s house on the market until she was happily ensconced in her new home. Albeit that would only be temporary. They didn’t know how long it would be before she could get a council flat.

  At this time, Jan had a letter from Marian in Thailand to say the whole family were coming over to the UK. Her mother hadn’t been that well lately and she felt it was time for a visit. Her husband, Kai, and their three children wanted to come for a holiday too. She was hoping to get down to Devon and let the kids see the beaches there – and to compare them to the beaches in Thailand. Probably no comparison, Jan thought to herself, but didn’t say anything. Was Marian being nostalgic about being home again in England where her family used to holiday at a typical English seaside resort? Sometimes in Devon or Cornwall and sometimes in Blackpool. Occasionally on a day trip to Weston-super-Mare which wasn’t far from Bristol. The beach there went on and on and on and then it was mud. It was so flat the tide went out for miles, it seemed.

  Jan wrote straight back to Marian to say that they would be delighted to see them, although they wouldn’t have room to put them up. She could find a B&B or a hotel on their behalf if Marian would let her know what they wanted.

  The house sale and purchase went through without a fuss and they moved in. The vendors of Jan and Geoff’s new house even left a leaving present for them. Their two cats had had fleas, but they didn’t go with them. The first night of staying there the whole family had all been bitten. Louise was the worst, with bites all over her legs.

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” Jan exclaimed. “I hope Hamish won’t get fleas now, although his collar is specially designed against them. We must get the council in to fumigate.”

  She called the council in and they sprayed all the carpets and every nook and cranny where they knew that fleas would live. Jan opened the windows against such a horrible smell. Not a good start.

  Geoff set to work putting up kitchen cupboards and a sink unit in the breakfast room. This was going to be his mother’s kitchen for as long as she needed. She would bring her own small table from her house. Plus all her own crockery, cutlery, pans and utensils etc.

  “Do you think this will be done by Christmas?” Jan enquired. “It would be nice for your mum if she was here in time for Christmas with us, wouldn’t it? It would make a change for us too, always spending Christmas at hers.”

  Geoff said it would be done in time for Christmas and so Jan set to with the preparations. As they had always spent it over at his mother’s house, this was effectively the first Christmas that Jan would have at home. She made a list of things to get, number one was ordering a nice turkey from the butcher.

  Marian and her brood all stayed at a posh seafront hotel. No expense spared. She had asked Jan to book it for her, so Jan went straight to the best hotel in Torquay. As she went into the reception, she could feel the plush carpet beneath her feet. She wished she was able to stay at a place like this but it was way out of her budget. They were only going to stay a few days before they moved on to stay in Cornwall for a week or so. A place Marian had been to when she was a child that she wanted to show her kids.

  Her children, two boys and a girl, were perfectly behaved. They were a credit to their mother and father, at least, when they were in their parents’ company. Jan thought that Kai could be quite strict. He was a serious type of individual but could be fun at the same time. Jan did not know him very well but what she saw of him she liked and thought that Marian was very lucky in her choice. Albeit it meant she had to live in a foreign country but Jan thought that Marian coped very well. Jan wondered how she would have coped with learning another language, together with strange customs, different to what they had both been brought up with.

  Kai asked Jan and Geoff and their children if he could treat them to dinner one evening, probably at their hotel as the food, he found, was very good.

  Jan just knew what Geoff was going to say. He did not disappoint.

  “I don’t want to get all dressed up like a dog’s dinner just for a meal out.”

  “Could you do it for me, just this once? Please,” Jan pleaded.

  Geoff succumbed to Jan’s pleading and they all got dressed up to have dinner at the posh hotel. Jan told her two to make sure they behaved themselves, or else! She knew they wouldn’t let her down and they didn’t. She had brought them up quite strictly but with fair discipline. They were teenagers now so they should know how to behave properly.

  Jan need not have worried about her own children. But as soon as dinner was over Marian’s three jumped down from the table and ran out of sight of their father. They grabbed hold of Steven and Louise to go with them. They went into the games room and started to take the place apart. The boys waved snooker cues about, almost poking out their sister’s eye. Then they started to use the cues like fencing epees. Louise and Steven were horrified. They went back to sit with their parents, even if it meant grown-up talk. They were having nothing to do with trashing the place. They said nothing but sat there quietly.

  “I’m glad you’ve made it back here at last, after all these years,” Jan began.

  “Well, if Mohammad won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain must come to Mohammad!” Marian recited.

  “What?” Kai asked puzzled.

  “Don’t worry, dear, it’s English-speak. Since he’s been home he’s almost forgotten how to speak English. I’ve been going to lessons to learn Thai and he expects me to converse in it all the time! Luckily the kids speak English to me but they also speak Thai,” Marian said.

  “How lucky to be able to speak two languages, I guess that makes them bilingual?” Jan mused.

  “Well, actually they speak four languages! As well as English and Thai they also speak Mandarin and Spanish,” said Marian proudly.

  “Very useful. I’m sure,” Geoff interjected a little too sarcastically. Jan gave him a nudge.

  “Why don’t you show Kai around outside?” Jan asked Geoff. “It’s a nice evening. Maybe have a walk along the promenade and onto the pier and take the kids with you. That’ll give me and Marian time to have a little chat and catch-up.”

  “Come on, you two. Let’s show Kai the beach and the pier, leave the ladies to chat,” Geoff said to Louise and Steven. As soon as they went out of the door, Marian’s three came bounding in.

  “Look,” said Marian to her brood, “you can catch up with Dad and Geoff and Louise and Steven, they’ve gone for a walk.” With that, they all rushed out.

  “Phew, what a handful!” Marian confessed.

  “Is everything all right with you?” Jan asked

  “Well, as you’ve asked, you must have noticed that Kai and I are not getting on so well these days. I don’t really like it in Thailand. It’s not my home, so I can’t call it home. It’s a man’s world. The women are pushed right down. I know I have a good life there and we have plenty of money and things but that’s not eve
rything, I can assure you!” Marian confided. “As the kids are getting older and are more independent there is less and less for me to do. I used to work in the department store.”

  “Yes, I remember. I used to have to send my letters to you there,” said Jan.

  “Well, that was only because the guards on the gates at home couldn’t speak or read any English. Imagine if you had a letter and it was addressed all in Chinese, would you be able to read it? No! Anyway, after I had number three, Cathy, I felt I couldn’t cope with the job as well as looking after another baby. I know we have servants to do most things and I also had a maid who was very helpful but, oh, I don’t know, I just felt I should be at home with them. I didn’t want any more kids, but Kai wanted more. You know he could take several wives if he wanted to, don’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. Is that the religion there?”

  “Sort of, yes. They’re Buddhists. His father had four wives and many, many children. We had an agreement when we got married that Kai wouldn’t take more wives and he hasn’t. But there has always been an element of a threat from him that he could have had more wives if he felt like it. It’s always been hanging over me if I didn’t toe the line. He’s very difficult to live with, wants everything his own way.”

  “Why don’t you leave him and come home? I’m sure your mum would support you. And your brothers would help out too. After all, you have three brothers who would be glad to take care of their sis, I’m sure,” Jan suggested.

  “It’s not as easy as that! If I left, I would have absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t have a penny-piece to my name. Divorce there is not like it is here. The woman gets nothing. He would automatically take the kids and I would never see them again. He would see to that. I just have to take it on the chin and put up with it. I can’t lose my kids, they’re everything to me.”