The Half-Child

by Angela Savage

  The hotel had two distinct sections: the White Wing, a modern tower of ‘deluxe’ and ‘superior’ rooms; and the Green Wing, an older, low-rise guesthouse with a dozen ‘standard’ rooms. Judging from the liberal use of Formica and round feature windows, Jayne dated the Green Wing circa 1960; the White Wing was still so new the paintwork had barely begun to blister.

  The Green Wing was not so much surrounded as encroached upon by a tropical garden: the rooms smelled of damp, liana vines crept through the air-vents, and palms jostled against the balcony railings like Triffids. The White Wing by contrast was surrounded by a belt of neat lawn, interrupted only by two large umbrella trees that survived the renovation.

  Jayne knew from her file notes that Maryanne had rented a room in the Green Wing after a short-lived experiment in a flat on her own. The apartment was in what they call a condo, she wrote home to her parents. All the neighbours were sleazy European men with much younger Thai girlfriends (or boyfriends!). I came home one night and found a guy trying to break in my door. He said the landlord had sent him to check the security system, but I didn’t believe him. I packed up my things on the spot and moved into the hotel where I am now. It’s so much safer for me here, more secure. Plus I was getting really run down because work is so exhausting and I couldn’t be bothered cooking for myself. But the hotel has a 24-hour kitchen and breakfast is included in the room rate. What do you think? Will you cover the extra?

  This explained the increase in the monthly payments into Maryanne’s account.

  The police report mentioned that although Maryanne wasn’t staying in the White Wing, as a guest she had access to all hotel facilities including the tower’s rooftop bar and swimming pool. Hotel staff interviewed by police couldn’t say how often Maryanne had made use of these facilities, though it was considered odd that she should be there when the bar and pool were closed.

  Jayne booked into an upper storey room in the Green Wing. It crossed her mind that this might well have been Maryanne’s room. The Thais would consider it haunted and gladly let it to a godless farang. Good thing she wasn’t superstitious.

  The simple room contained a queen-sized bed with side tables and reading lamps bolted onto the wall at one end, a unit with a built-in desk, TV, bar fridge, wardrobe and mirror at the other. The en suite bathroom to the left of the entrance was so small you could have a shower, brush your teeth and use the toilet all at the same time. On the far side of the room, glass doors led to a balcony containing two white plastic chairs and a matching table. A glass ashtray rested precariously on the railing.

  Jayne unpacked her clothes and placed the paperwork on the desk but didn’t linger. Armed with cigarettes, wallet, mobile phone and a notebook, she headed back out to the main road in search of a songthaew to take her into Central Pattaya.

  Following the direction of the traffic, she walked west along Soi 7 towards the beach. The beer bars were stacked side-by-side and piled on top of one another like speakers at a stadium concert, each playing a different tune. The result was a cacophony of whining Thai pop, booming slow rock and the clang of Thai boxing music, all competing to the point of distortion. Jayne fled to Soi 8, but it was more of the same.

  The cluttered footpaths forced her on to the road, where she careened into a pile of sand. She stopped to shake out the grit in her sandals, the traffic fumes made her eyes water. She’d planned to explore the district for a while, but soaking up the atmosphere made her feel like she needed a shower.

  She headed back to the main drag and waved down another songthaew. It was nearing dusk. Neon signs and fairy-lights flickered around the entrances to the bars and restaurants. From the dolphin fountain she continued north, pressing the button to descend at one of the soi, or secondary roads, that ran west of Thanon Naklua. She avoided a hole in the road and the spider-web of electrical wires inside it and skirted around a pile of bitumen chunks. She might as well never have left Bangkok.

  The New Life Children’s Centre was in a gated compound halfway along the soi. In typical Thai fashion, the gate was elaborate wrought iron painted gold, intended to make a good impression. Jayne peered through the railings. Inside was an assortment of freestanding buildings labelled in Thai and English—Administration, Orphanage, Clinic—connected by plant-lined paths and surrounded by manicured lawns. There was a large crucifix on the outer wall of the orphanage. The place looked orderly and welcoming, though a sign on the front gate in Thai and English advised visitors were not admitted without an appointment. Jayne jotted down the phone number. Attached to the gatepost was a perspex box containing pamphlets in English entitled ‘Give A Child A New Life: Volunteer Now’. Jayne slipped one into her pocket.

  A security guard in a navy uniform with a loop of red braid over one shoulder approached from inside the compound. The logo on his sleeve said ‘Steel Man Inc’. A contractor. Jayne asked for directions to the other part of the centre. He sent her further along the soi, down a laneway on the left, straight ahead at a dog’s leg intersection to another compound on the right.

  This also had a gate, though not as elaborate and painted blue, with a sign in Thai only. Behind the gate the buildings looked ill at ease. They reminded Jayne of classrooms she’d taught in during a student placement in outer-metropolitan Melbourne: intended as temporary but never replaced, the portables huddled on the landscape like squatters in constant fear of eviction. Here each building differed as if they’d been added in stages, the office newer than either the clinic or the building marked Satharn Liang Dek, ‘Nursery’.

  The pathways connecting the buildings were unadorned, but a yellow and red striped awning sheltered the path between the clinic and nursery.

  As she watched, a nurse emerged cradling a crying infant. Jayne could hear the woman hushing the baby as she hurried to the clinic. She was dressed completely in white, from the perky cap on her head to the pristine sandshoes on her feet. She even wore white stockings.

  Moments later, another two women came out of the nursery. Judging by their clothing—both wore singlets, one in flared jeans, the other in a denim miniskirt—they were not staff. One carried what Jayne assumed was an imitation Louis Vuitton tote bag, the other, Dolce e Gabbana.

  The women were headed towards the gate when two men—an older farang and a Thai security guard—stepped out from behind a building into the women’s path. The farang man wore a crucifix around his neck large enough to make out at a distance of more than ten metres. Jayne guessed this was Frank Harding, the centre’s expatriate adviser.

  She was too far away to understand what they were saying, but the women’s body language suggested the exchange was unwelcome. The one with the D&G tote smiled but clutched her bag tight. The other didn’t fold her arms so much as hug herself. The conversation was tense and brief. Jayne noticed that the security guard continued to block their path after the women clearly motioned to leave.

  From where she stood, it looked like a shakedown.

  Jayne ducked back down the laneway to the soi. By the time the women emerged, they were both talking on mobile phones, too distracted to notice her. On impulse, she followed them.

  7

  Mayuree tried to take her son out of the centre every Sunday. Ever since he was born she treated it as their special day. Sometimes working two jobs—cleaning by day, bar work at night—caught up with her and she’d sleep through her alarm and into the afternoon, until it was too late to do much more than drop by on her way to work and steal a sleepy kiss. But on this occasion she and Wen had succeeded in spending Sunday with their boys.

  They’d picked up Kob and Moo mid-morning and brought them back to their shared apartment. They spent time marvelling at how fast the boys were growing. They fed them rice soup and lay alongside them watching as they napped. In the cool of the late afternoon, they took the boys to a quiet, shady part of Naklua beach and let them play in the sand.

  It broke Mayuree’s heart to leave Kob in an institution.

  But once Sumet left, sh
e had little choice. For the first few weeks she tried pretending that the centre could substitute for her brother’s care. Where once she’d left Kob with Sumet, she took the boy to the nursery each afternoon and picked him up the next morning on her way home from the bar.

  Not having Sumet to look after the baby during the day meant taking Kob with her on her cleaning jobs. Fighting exhaustion, she would carry him in a sling on her back while she scrubbed other people’s houses. Sometimes she let him lie on a cool, tiled floor, where he swatted at dustmites caught in beams of sunlight. But as he became more mobile, squirming to be released from the sling, rolling from one side of the room to the other, grabbing at rags, brooms, floor cleaner and bleach, Mayuree was forced to reconsider the arrangement. By necessity, Kob ended up spending more time in the institution, less time with her.

  As she took pains to explain to Khun Frank, the counsellor at the centre, it didn’t mean she loved Kob less.

  It’s just that her options were limited.

  Khun Frank asked her about family support. She wanted to tell him they’d had the perfect arrangement: her brother looked after the baby while she worked to save enough money to get them home to Kanchanaburi. But Sumet had insisted that he could raise money, too—enough to take them further from Pattaya than back to the western province they came from. Poor, sweet, dumb Sumet.

  As for her parents, Mayuree pretended she had none, though in truth, she could no more endure long-distance separation from Kob than she could subject him to their disapproval.

  Mayuree’s native province of Kanchanaburi was known amongst Thais for its national parks and border skirmishes with Burma. Other tourists visited because Kanchanaburi was where the Japanese Imperial Army forced farang prisoners to build the train line to Burma. This ‘Death Railway’ passed over a bridge on the Kwae River not far from where Mayuree grew up. There was a film about the bridge, which Mayuree had never managed to sit through without falling asleep. That didn’t stop her selling the video alongside bottled water, soap and batteries to tourists who came into her parents’ store.

  Her mother later regretted encouraging her daughter to interact with farangs. She blamed herself for setting in train the events that led to her daughter’s disgrace and the birth of a black-skinned bastard grandson—a mother’s punishment for having put the family’s business interests ahead of Mayuree’s honour.

  In fact, the farangs in Kanchanaburi were mostly sad-looking old men and polite backpackers, who praised Mayuree’s schoolgirl English, never argued about prices and did nothing to prepare her for the sort of foreigners she encountered in Pattaya. But there was no point arguing with her mother. Mae saw Kob not as the beautiful baby he was, but as a penalty, a curse. Unlike Mae, Sumet was deeply fond of Kob and had tried to make a difference for his sister and his nephew; but he’d been too ambitious. Euam ded dok fah—reaching for flowers in the sky.

  Mayuree wanted peace and stability for her son. She also wanted to raise him to think highly of himself, to have pride. She wondered at times if it was too much to expect.

  Mayuree missed Kanchanaburi. She missed the Erawan Falls that looked like the sacred three-headed elephant.

  She missed communal bathing in the shallow pools, the old ladies scrubbing their grandchildren while the young girls took turns to shampoo each other’s hair. She missed swimming, fully-clothed, with her brother and cousins in the deeper pools where tiny fish nipped at their toes and water cascaded over their necks. She missed their picnics on the rocks, eating barbecued chicken on bamboo skewers, rolling sticky rice into bite-sized balls, shooing the monkeys that tried to steal their fried bananas.

  She wanted her son to know these pleasures and the quiet and gentle pace of life on a river. It was a far cry from their life in Pattaya. She wished she could transport him by water instead of by road, lull him to sleep in a rocking long-tail boat instead of a makeshift hammock in her cramped one-room apartment above a pharmacy. But she couldn’t take him home to Kanchanaburi until she could hold her head up high enough to protect him with her shadow.

  It was to this end that Mayuree worked two jobs. Her plan was to save until she had enough to buy a small business in Kan’buri, a place on the river towards the famous bridge not far from the railway station. She would open a beer bar—she’d worked in the industry long enough to learn a thing or two about running such a business—a low-key place with a pool table at the back and a terrace overlooking the water. She would fill the terrace with plants—gem flowers, a thorny poi sian in a dragon pot for luck—and serve cold beer and spicy Thai snacks. She would employ one or two staff to help her and pay them a decent wage. There would be no need for commissions and nothing for sale but food and drink. Music would play low in the background and the volume on the television, if she decided to put one in, would be turned right down. She and Kob would live above the bar. She’d invite her cousin’s daughter to live with them and send her to school when she wasn’t taking care of the baby.

  Mayuree invested her savings in stocks and shares, making use of what she’d learned as an undergraduate in Bangkok: she’d completed two years of a financial management degree with pleasing results, before falling for the wrong kind of man and having her world turned upside down. She calculated that if she worked hard, notwithstanding any unexpected outlays, she’d have enough for a deposit in just over a year’s time, within a month or so of Kob’s second birthday. She might have saved faster had she continued to work in the go-go club—Wen earned more than her on a weekly basis—but after Kob was born, Mayuree couldn’t face it any more. At the beer bar, she earned a basic wage plus commission if she reached her sales quota. If not, she could always dance for tips. It was a chore, but at least she kept her underwear on.

  They were running late for work by the time she and Wen brought the boys back to the centre. Kob had fallen asleep sitting up on the motorcycle taxi between Mayuree and the driver, and she carefully transferred him to her shoulder, paid the fare and rang the bell at the gate. Wen bounced a grizzling Moo on her hip. Mayuree pressed the bell again. Chaowalit shuffled into view, saw them standing there, and slowed his pace.

  ‘Kor thort ka,’ she implored him, ‘Please hurry, older brother. We get fined if we’re late for work.’

  Chaowalit said nothing, continued to saunter. When he finally unlocked the gate, the women brushed past, ignoring his sarcastic bow.

  ‘Asshole,’ Mayuree murmured.

  The centre staff were setting out the evening meal for the older children as Mayuree and Wen bustled in. With a nod, they took their sons through to the sleeping area. The boys had standard issue cots that Mayuree and Wen tried to make special with linen and soft toys. But their gifts were swallowed up in the institution.

  Mayuree kissed her son’s forehead, lay him on his side and patted his bottom a few times. As he dozed, she took the fluffy green frog that was his favourite from her tote bag and placed it under his arm. She put a new set of clothes in the pillowcase at the foot of the cot, and turned back to hom kaem—sniff-kiss—his cheek.

  ‘See you soon, my precious boy,’ she whispered.

  Wen had managed to settle Moo. The two women retraced their steps and headed for the gate, but to Mayuree’s dismay, found their path blocked by Chaowalit and Frank the farang counsellor.

  ‘Sisters, I wonder if I could have a word,’ he began.

  Mayuree forced a tight smile. ‘Kor thort na ka, Khun Frank, but we are running late for work.’

  ‘Ah yes, work,’ the farang said.

  Chaowalit sniggered, playing his usual role as Khun Frank’s standover man. Mayuree ignored him.

  ‘So if you’ll excuse us,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps sisters you’ve had time to consider the proposal I put to you last time we spoke,’ Frank continued.

  Wen made a move to speak but Mayuree cut her off.

  ‘We’ve considered the proposal, yes,’ she said, ‘but we’re happy with the current arrangement. Thank you for your concern. Now
, please—’

  ‘Sia jai,’ he said, ‘I’m disappointed to hear that. The choice is yours. Perhaps we can talk again sometime soon?’

  Mayuree smiled again and gave him a wai. Wen followed suit. But Chaowalit’s bulk still blocked their path.

  ‘Please let us pass, older brother,’ Mayuree said through gritted teeth.

  The security guard puffed out his chest and leered at them, before ambling off to open the gate.

  ‘Pop kan mai,’ Frank called after them. ‘Till next time.’

  Not if I can help it, Mayuree thought.

  8

  Jayne hailed a motorcycle taxi to tail the songthaew taking the two women back towards the coast road. The woman in jeans descended first and as she was the one who did all the talking at the centre, Jayne decided to stick with her.

  The woman entered the Coconut Club, one in a strip of open-fronted bars overlooking Pattaya Bay, and disappeared behind a petition. Jayne took a seat. Behind the bar a young man wearing an orange hibiscus flower behind his ear, a perfect match for the motif on his Hawaiian shirt, carved fruit into lai thai, decorative leaves and flowers. He put aside a lotus bud sculpted in watermelon to take Jayne’s order.

  At one end of the bar sat a group of young Australians, a party of British tourists at the other. There was a table of puffy-looking men with thick Eastern European accents and bags of leather goods at their feet, and two very blonde types reading a travel guide in what looked like Swedish. A tiny stage in the far corner of the bar with a pole from floor to ceiling suggested things might hot up as the night wore on.

  Jayne took her beer to a table by the bar. In the time it took for her to smoke a cigarette the barman finished his lotus and started transforming a man kaew —a white root vegetable she didn’t know the name of in English—into a frangipani blossom. The woman resurfaced. She’d swapped her T-shirt for a bikini top made to look like coconut shells and her jeans for a grass skirt. A second woman, similarly clad, followed from behind the partition, pausing to touch up her lipstick in the mirrored surface of a beer tap, while the first went to work on the customers.