The Half-Child

by Angela Savage

  Jayne recalled the billboard on the outskirts of town.

  ‘Well, we’re rehearsing for the inaugural Miss Tiffany Universe contest,’ Thanya said. ‘It will be spectacular, breathtaking. Not just the greatest show in Pattaya—it’s going to be bigger than Miss Thailand.’

  Jayne expected this to be met with more howls of laughter but the kratoey were straight-faced. Thanya tilted her chin high enough to make her earrings tinkle.

  ‘The winner of Miss Tiffany Universe will qualify to compete in the Miss Queen of the Universe pageant in America,’ she said. ‘You should come, Khun Jayne.’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘End of May.’

  Jayne counted on being back in Bangkok long before then, but nodded politely.

  ‘I’ll certainly try.’

  She gave Thanya a wai and bowed to the rest of her unlikely bodyguards as they resumed their line across the stage. The strains of Whitney Houston singing ‘I’m every woman’ could be heard from a hidden sound system and several of the beauty queens lip-synched along. As she let herself out the back door, Jayne remembered another term for Thailand’s third sex: nang faa chamlaeng, ‘angels in disguise’.

  She hailed a songthaew, took a seat at the end of the bench, and pulled Tommy’s photos from the waistband of her jeans. They were a little crumpled from the ordeal, but otherwise undamaged. She examined them by the passing light of neon signs and street lamps. Mitch and Tommy on surf-skis; having massages on the beach; drinking cocktails in coconut shells; posing thumbs-up, with go-go dancers behind them, beside them, on top of them. The women wore nothing but strained smiles.

  Jayne’s face burned to think she not only kissed Tommy, she almost enjoyed it. She spat out the back of the car and willed Rasmi to fleece him for all he was worth.

  The photos of an African-American couple—presumably Leroy and his wife—with an infant stood in stark contrast.

  The woman held the child with palpable tenderness, her head bowed low like a Byzantine Madonna. Jayne couldn’t see the baby’s face. On the wall in the background were framed certificates, degrees and qualifications with official seals.

  There were several more family shots—the man looking up, grinning nervously, the woman transfixed by the baby— one of Tommy and Mitch with the new family, and one with Frank and Doctor Somsri standing either side of Leroy and Alicia. Then finally a close-up of the child.

  The songthaew turned and headed up the hill towards Jayne’s hotel. There were few streetlights on this stretch and Jayne strained to get a good look at the picture. It wasn’t until the car pulled over to let her off that she had enough light to see. His eyes were closed and his chin partly obscured by a blanket, but Jayne was sure of it.

  The little boy Tommy’s cousin had adopted was Mayuree’s son Kob.

  25

  Wen had already moved out. Mayuree cleaned the apartment in her wake and packed the little that remained in a red, white and blue striped plastic bag. A few clothes, her old college textbooks, a bunch of letters. She found a photo of Sumet and Kob taken on a visit to the Elephant Village and slipped it into her handbag together with Kob’s stuffed frog and the small wooden box wrapped in white cloth, which contained his ashes. She took out her phone and contemplated calling her brother. She couldn’t do it. Not yet.

  She gave Wen all Kob’s clothes, knowing she’d sell them to a second-hand dealer rather than risk having his bad luck rub off on Moo. Mayuree gave her all her own work clothes, shoes, cosmetics and perfume, too. Wen promised to keep these things for her but Mayuree insisted she get rid of them. While she might not know what was in store for her, she had no intention of ever returning to Pattaya.

  Mayuree’s hair hung limp in an unkempt ponytail. Not a trace of makeup remained on her face and her skin was dry. The sleeping tablets Doctor Somsri had given her made her feel groggy and parched but she kept taking them to dull the pain. What little joy there was in Mayuree’s life had died with Kob. Not even her boss’s decision to cancel her debt in light of her misfortune could raise Mayuree’s spirits. She’d welcome such debt ten times over if it would bring back her son.

  Mayuree closed the door to her flat and slipped the key under it. She made her way downstairs to the street and hailed a motorcycle taxi to take her to the bus depot. As the driver revved the engine, she eased herself on to the pillion seat and balanced the bag on her lap.

  Doctor Somsri’s drugs didn’t stop her head from aching with the pressure of unshed tears. She wished she could cry. Crying might allow her to cleanse her son’s spirit since she had been denied the chance to wash his dead body.

  Mayuree didn’t understand why her son had been cremated with such haste. The doctor had said something about a risk of infection. Surely they could have allowed her to see his body in the hospital. Even from a distance. Even from behind plate-glass. She’d asked them about this, too.

  ‘Too distressing,’ the doctor had said.

  Too distressing? What could be more distressing than losing her son, other than losing him and not being able to say goodbye?

  She had let Kob down in life. There was no denying it. She should never have brought him with her to Pattaya. It was crazy to think she and Sumet could have sustained the arrangement they had. She should have left Kob with her parents in Kanchanaburi. They might have disapproved of him, but they would have kept him alive.

  She’d let him down in death, too. Unable to arrange the rites to ensure a peaceful transition to the next life, his soul would be left wandering, a phi lok in an endless search for the comfort and care she’d failed to give him.

  Mayuree gathered up the bag in her lap and threw it to the side of the road. The bag split as it hit the ground, scattering her things in the dust.

  The motorcycle driver swerved and slowed. ‘Woah, sister, you need me to stop?’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘No, keep going.’

  Who was she kidding? She might leave all her possessions behind, take a bus to the other end of the country, go back to college, change her name, and make a new life for herself.

  But she would never leave Pattaya behind. There would always be something holding her here.

  She wanted to kill herself, but that was selfish, and selfishness had killed her son. To go on living without him— that was how she would atone for the mess she’d made of her life and for the life denied her son. Only this was punishment enough.

  She would return to her parents’ place in Kanchanaburi and offer herself to them as a servant. She would serve them diligently and without complaint, welcoming any opportunity to humble herself. No task would be too menial, no abuse too degrading. She would work until her hands were red raw and her hair matted with sweat and dust. Until her knees were calloused, her shoulders stooped, and no movement was without pain. Until her skin was as black as her son’s had been.

  Mayuree would offer up every sacrifice for the sake of her son and take every opportunity to make merit for him.

  On holy days she would crawl up the pilgrim’s path to the top of the Tiger Cave Temple and pray alongside her brother for the spirits to show mercy. Not for herself, but for Kob, so his ghost might find a place to rest.

  26

  Rajiv was sitting in an armchair in the hotel lobby reading a newspaper when Jayne walked in. Her pounding heart skipped a beat at the sight of him and she ducked behind a pillar to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.

  She wasn’t expecting him. As far as she knew, they hadn’t set a date for when he might join her. Now that he was here, Jayne wanted nothing more than to take Rajiv by the hand, lead him up to her room and screw him senseless. She ached for it, primed by Tommy’s kisses and the whole sleazy fuck-fest that was Pattaya.

  But how could she even be thinking about sex when she had proof Kob was alive? Jayne needed to find Mayuree above all else. She also needed time to think about the implications of her discovery. She was sure some sort of baby laundering racket was going on. Frank Harding and Doc
tor Somsri were involved, but who else at the New Life Children’s Centre was in on it? What about the stern Connie, or perky Dianne? The other staff and volunteers?

  Was adoption fraud behind Maryanne Delbeck’s death?

  Jayne glanced at Rajiv. He stared at the same page, not reading at all.

  She pressed her back against the pillar. There was no choice: she had to find Mayuree. She checked her watch—it was already after ten—and there was no telling how long Rajiv had been waiting for her. She’d been gone nearly three hours.

  She massaged her forehead, feeling the grime of dust, sweat and makeup beneath her touch. Perhaps there was a third option—the proverbial ‘middle path’ aspired to by all good Thai Buddhists—that might enable her to do the right thing by Mayuree without losing Rajiv.

  She caught sight of her reflection in a nearby mirror, mercifully angled where Rajiv could not see her. With hair coiled into snakes and eyes rimmed with smudged mascara she looked like a Gorgon. All traces of her so-called kiss-proof lipstick were gone, and there was dirt under her fingernails.

  Her clothes were a crumpled mess. Her asymmetrically buttoned blouse was a dead giveaway that she’d dressed in a rush.

  Using her pack as a shield, Jayne straightened her buttons. She cleaned her face as best she could with a tissue and spit and restored her lipstick. The serpentine hair was still a problem, but that could be accounted for by the combined effects of sea air and songthaew rides. She took a deep breath, willed herself not to blush and stepped out from behind the pillar.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’

  Rajiv leapt to his feet, Bangkok Post falling to the floor.

  ‘Hello, Jayne, I wasn’t sure…that is, I didn’t know…’ He ran his fingers through his hair and looked from her to the newspaper and back again.

  ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,’ she said.

  He relaxed visibly.

  ‘Well, I can,’ she corrected herself. ‘But do you mind if I do it on the road?’

  Rajiv wasn’t sure what sort of reception to expect, but it didn’t involve being dragged out in the middle of the night, clambering into the back of a songthaew, and going off in search of a Thai woman. He couldn’t believe his luck: he was out with Jayne on a case.

  First stop was a bar on the seafront, one in a row of similar shacks where foreign men drank beer until they went red in the face, then put their arms around each other and sang songs. Rajiv saw it all the time on Khao San Road. It was commonplace for Indian men to walk down the street holding hands but Western men seemed to need to drink a lot of alcohol before they would touch each other and then they couldn’t stop. Rajiv viewed them from the doorway while Jayne went inside. She wasn’t gone long.

  ‘She’s not there,’ Jayne said. ‘Her colleague said she resigned to return home to the countryside. We need to move fast.’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  ‘No, but I know someone who does.’

  ‘This is what you call following a lead, yes?’

  She smiled, her face lit by the neon signs of the beer bars and hotels that lined the beach road. ‘It’s about a ten minute walk.’

  They headed south, the beach on their right. Streetlights illuminated the coconut palms, thatched umbrellas and sunlounges, deserted apart from a few Thai tourists making the most of the dark to take in the sea air.

  ‘So who are we looking for?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m looking for the mother of the baby who died, the one they said had sickle cell anaemia.’

  ‘The one you told me about over the phone.’

  ‘Yes, only…Look Rajiv, I’m going to have to swear you to secrecy on something, okay?’

  He wiggled his head.

  ‘I mean it,’ Jayne said. ‘Not a word to anyone.’

  ‘On my honour.’

  She stopped walking and placed a hand on his arm.

  Although unlikely anyone would overhear given the blaring pop music coming from the bars, she leaned over and whispered in his ear.

  ‘The baby isn’t dead. He was stolen from his mother and adopted out to an American couple. His death was faked.’

  Rajiv let out his breath with a whistle. ‘How did you find out about this?’

  ‘The usual combination of good detective work and blind luck. Mayuree needs to know her baby is still alive.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rajiv said. ‘Where is the baby now?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I’ll be making a few calls to Bangkok first thing tomorrow morning to find out.’

  An early start wasn’t exactly what Rajiv was hoping for, but he told himself to go with the flow. ‘So how are you going to find the mother?’

  ‘Her flatmate works at a club on The Strip.’

  ‘The Strip?’

  ‘Pattaya’s wild side,’ Jayne said. ‘We’re coming up to it now.’

  They’d reached a busy crossroads. The sea view was engulfed by a row of tightly packed buildings, go-go bars, clubs and karaoke as far as the eye could see. The air smelled of stale beer, rotten fruit and room deodoriser. The Strip must have been what cousin Rohit had in mind when he referred to Pattaya as ‘Patpong by the sea’.

  It was less risqué than Rajiv had imagined. In a boxing-ring-cum-bar, two men wearing billowing satin shorts, boxing gloves and white ropes around their biceps kicked and punched to jingling music and loud cheers from spectators.

  There was a row of seafood restaurants with their edible aquariums of fish, lobsters, crabs and abalone. A pub. Lots of bars.

  They passed a placed called Magic A Go-Go with a sign boasting ‘Only European Women on the First Floor’.

  Rajiv looked up to see a blonde in a coffee-coloured negligee gyrating inside a glassed-in corner of the building. He almost tripped over a Thai woman in a bikini top and miniskirt standing on the path holding a sign ‘Henhouse A Go-Go:

  Many New Chicks To Choose This Week’. Jostling for attention next to her was a man in a three-piece suit and tie; his sign read ‘Live Sex Show Upstairs – Lady and Man – Lady and Lady – Lady and Snake’.

  He grabbed Jayne’s arm. ‘Did you see that?’ He tilted his head at the tout.

  She paused to look over her shoulder. ‘Yeah, bizarre,’ she said. ‘That suit must be really hot.’

  They passed more venues with names like Winner Bar, Lucky Score, Fortunate Son. Looking at the people around him, Rajiv figured a few of them could do with some luck.

  Many were older Western men with leathery skin whose unbuttoned shirts exposed grey chest hairs. There were younger men, too, wearing buzz cuts and singlets to show off newly inked tattoos of tigers and dragons. A man with a red beard and a big belly walked by wearing a T-shirt that said ‘No money, no honey’; as he had a ‘honey’ on his arm, Rajiv guessed he must have money. An elderly farang brushed past him, talking and gesticulating at two tourist police in black uniforms and matching berets.

  To Rajiv’s surprise, there were couples and even families promenading, too: an Indian couple with a crying baby, an aging Thai transsexual carrying a sleeping boy. A pale man whose facial features looked ironed flat bought a yellow rose, kissed it, and handed it to his consort, a burly blonde whose pantsuit matched the colour of the flower. She flushed with pleasure and kissed her paramour once on each cheek.

  It all seemed so good natured—nothing like the brothel districts of New Dehli—though it was noisy as a camel fair.

  Every venue played a different song. Rajiv heard snatches of The Eagles, Bob Marley, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, ‘The Macarena’. A live rock band competed with an Elvis impersonator and people singing karaoke in what sounded like Russian.

  His nostrils caught a waft of aromatic smoke. It came from a large concrete spirit house surrounded by tubs of smouldering incense, ropes of jasmine and some three-dozen opened bottles of red Mirinda, a white straw poking out of each. The thought that South Pattaya’s resident land spirit was a hyperactive child high on sugary soft drink seemed apt to Rajiv. He marvelled th
at even in a place this profane, the residents found sacred space. This much they had in common with their counterparts in India.

  A firm hand to his solar plexus stopped him in his tracks.

  He looked down at long fingers tapering to glittery gold nails.

  The nails were adhered to the hands of a heavily made-up ladyboy, with beaded earrings dripping to shoulder-level and a top so low-cut her nipples were showing. Rajiv had a healthy fear of hijras —in India, the cross-dressing eunuchs could curse you if you angered them—and accepted the brochure she thrust at him. The ladyboy released him. Rajiv glanced at the cover—something about a cabaret show— and disposed of it as soon as he could.

  Just as he wondered when it would end, Jayne stopped and gestured towards a bar across the road, an empty stage at its centre surrounded by tables and chairs. Out front a woman in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt way too small for her wore a sandwich board that said ‘Monkey Business – Draft Beer 55 B – Lady Drink 99 B – No Cover Charge’.

  Jayne turned to face him.

  ‘So Rajiv, how do you feel about buying a lady a drink?’

  If he were honest, the thought of it made him sick. ‘Are you asking me to do this to assist you with the case?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, you can be my own personal Doctor Watson.’

  ‘I don’t recall this being the kind of duty Sherlock Holmes ever required of his Doctor Watson.’

  ‘True,’ Jayne said. ‘But my Doctor Watson gets to have much more fun than Holmes’s ever did.’

  She was treating it like a game. She wasn’t to know she’d touched a raw nerve.

  ‘What exactly are you wanting me to do?’ Rajiv said.

  ‘Take a table close to the street and when a waitress comes over order a drink and ask for Miss Wen. When she joins you, order a drink for her, too, and start a conversation.

  I’ll pretend to catch sight of you through the crowd and will come over.’

  ‘Why don’t you just talk to Wen directly?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Jayne said, ‘it’s easier this way. Wen gets paid for her time and we avoid creating suspicion.’