Catching the Sun

by Tony Parsons

  That’s what they were thinking.

  And they were right.

  Then suddenly they were all there. Mrs Botan with more food, grilled prawns the size of lobsters, the fat pink and white flesh and charred black shell, and Kai carrying a tray bearing plates and cutlery and the book she had been reading, and then Mr Botan sneaking a quick roll-up before he sat down, and finally Chatree bringing up the rear, his head completely covered by an old black crash helmet he must have found in the shed. He played it straight, sitting at the far end of the table by himself and reading a book through the helmet, elaborately turning his head as he enjoyed our laughter. And even Mr Botan had to laugh at the sight of a sea gypsy in a crash helmet.

  A figure came out of the darkness, drawn by the scent of fresh seafood, and I saw that dishevelled farang silhouette of baggy polo shirt and cargo shorts before I realized that it was Nick. Mrs Botan stood up and I expected her to say that it was family only tonight, but her husband said something to her in Thai and she greeted him with a small wai.

  ‘Please,’ she said, indicating the table where already we were reaching for the giant prawns, and we all shuffled down to let him sit. He found himself sitting next to Tess.

  He smiled around the table, shaking his head with wonder at the food, and nodding at the books by Kai and Chatree’s plates.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘How are the lessons going?’

  Tess seemed to soften a little.

  ‘These two like poetry,’ she said, indicating Kai and Chatree. ‘Much more than my two. I don’t know. Maybe it’s easier to learn a language when it rhymes.’ She stood up and reached across the table and banged on Chatree’s black crash helmet. ‘You like a bit of poetry, don’t you?’ she said, and we all laughed.

  Chatree whipped off his helmet.

  ‘Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea,’ he chanted, reaching for a giant prawn. ‘Silver buckles on his knee – he’ll come back and marry me – Bonny Bobby Shafto!’

  He took a large bite of prawn and bowed gracefully, acknowledging the table’s wild applause.

  Nick was looking at Kai.

  She was wearing one of Tess’ T-shirts, too big for her, and it slipped off one shoulder and revealed her shoulder blade in the creamy moonlight before she pulled it back in place. She was smiling with shy feline grace, knowing it was her turn now.

  ‘And the sunlight clasps the earth,’ she said, very quietly, screwing up her eyes in memory. She stopped and looked at Tess. My wife nodded encouragement.

  ‘It’s good, Kai,’ Tess said. ‘You know it now.’

  ‘And the sunlight clasps the earth,’ Kai repeated. ‘And the moonbeams kiss the sea – what are all these kissings worth – if you don’t kiss me?’

  ‘That,’ Nick said, and shook his head, words failing him. He had completely forgotten about the giant prawn in his hand. ‘That’s … that’s … God.’

  ‘That’s Shelley,’ Tess said briskly. ‘As I say, they like poetry. What’s that Roger McGough you like, Chatree? Summer with Monika?’

  ‘Ten milk bottles standing in the hall,’ Chatree laughed. ‘Ten milk bottles up against the wall.’

  ‘Such a little Englishman,’ Mrs Botan said.

  But Nick was still looking at Kai.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You know Shelley. ‘Love’s Philosophy’, right? What good are all these kissings … I’m impressed.’

  Kai gave a modest shake of her head and her hands flurried in denial.

  ‘No,’ she smiled. ‘No, no, no. I don’t know it at all. I only know the words.’

  ‘Less talking,’ Mr Botan said gruffly, reaching for the rapidly shrinking stack of giant prawns. ‘More eating.’

  But I was full.

  So while the others kept eating I ran my hands over the table I had built, enjoying the way the wood felt both soft and strong, and I thought of Jesse up at Bang Pae with the gibbons, and how without a family to hold you to the ground you could not survive here for very long, and the hardwood was cool and smooth under the cuts on my hands as Tess watched the faces of Nick and Kai, looking at each other across the table, and smiling in the darkness.

  25

  I came out of the fish market pushing a stained wad of baht into my pocket, a huge plastic bag of ice held in my other arm, and I looked around for the dog, calling his name.

  I was just about to give up when Mister trotted out of a massage joint on the other side of the road, surrounded by smiling middle-aged women, holding his ratty brown head high, and looking very pleased with himself.

  ‘I’m not hanging about for you any more,’ I said. ‘If you keep wandering off, I’m not waiting for you, all right?’

  He looked away, feigning indifference, or perhaps genuinely indifferent, settling down on the unmade beach road to give his testicles a good lick. But as I started back to the restaurant, holding the ice in both arms now, he sprang up and trotted along beside me. To our right the sun beat down on the glassy sea and the light was so bright that I had to look away.

  The hot season was here and by now Hat Nai Yang was no longer just a beach. On the sea side there were restaurants and bars running all the way from the fish market to the shadow of our hill, and on the other side of the beach road there was a ramshackle strip of open-fronted shops advertising elephant rides, boat trips to the islands, snorkelling, fishing, motorbike rental, car rental, longtail rides, money exchange, Muay Thai tickets and laundry – often all in one big glass window.

  Even in the baking air of mid-afternoon, traffic was heavy; mostly bikes and scooters, but with the occasional rented jeep bumping slowly down the beach road, and I had to lift Mister up and put him on the pavement to keep him from walking in the road.

  The dog was still half-wild. He came and went from our home at his leisure, relishing the attention and regular meals that he got with our family, but jealously guarding his independence. He was still a Thai beach dog, despite the smart collar and name-and-address tag that Rory and Keeva had proudly hung around his neck.

  I watched him peel off and saunter into one of the new beachside bars.

  Mister, I thought. What kind of dumb name is that for a dog?

  But I stopped and waited for him, looking up as I heard the roar of engines in the sky. A big jet came out of the sun and seemed to fly in a flat line across the sea and then disappear into the trees north of the bay. I felt the bag of ice slick and cold against my chest and walked on, knowing that Mister would appear again when the mood took him.

  There were motorbikes everywhere at our end of the beach because all of the seafront restaurants were open again, apart from the Almost World Famous Seafood Grill.

  There were also children everywhere. They seemed to belong to no one and to everyone. Safety was gently administered. When someone – a waitress, a massage woman, one of the men who lounged by the ancient taxis – saw a toddler staggering too close to the stream of bikes and scooters in the road, they were tenderly shooed out of danger. The place teemed with life and yet I had never felt so safe. Despite all the changes, it was still a place of cool hearts and easy smiles. I brought the ice to Mrs Botan and watched her pour it into a large plastic box. Then she packed it with a dozen prawns the size of old-fashioned telephones. This is what we had kept back from our catch to feed us tonight.

  ‘There are men outside,’ she said.

  ‘Men?’

  I looked out at the beach. I could see Nick sitting alone at the nearest table, his straw hat pulled low over his face even though he was in the shade of the casuarinas and, in one of the open-sided shelters, there were dark figures hunched around the table.

  ‘They think we are open,’ she said. ‘Because they see Nick eat. I tried to explain but my English is very bad.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your English,’ I said, putting my arm around her. ‘I’ll tell them.’

  I walked out to the beach, exhaling with the heat, noting the three hired Harleys parked outside the palm-leaf entrance to the restaurant. Nick
had the remains of a pair of giant prawns in front of him and a bottle of Singha in his hand. He did not look at me as I went past him. He was watching Kai clean the tables.

  I walked up to the shelter. There were three of them. Bikers. I took in tattoos, goatees, and shaven heads. Muscles and beer guts. The island was full of men like that, but they usually stayed a lot further south.

  ‘Three Singhas,’ one of them told me, the accent southern English.

  I laughed.

  ‘Sorry, lads, we’re not open yet,’ I smiled. ‘Come back soon and we’ll be happy to serve you.’

  They looked at me as if I was a liar. Pale blue eyes in a big pasty face turned towards me. There was something wrong with his face. He had a bristling red beard on his chin but nothing on his upper lip.

  ‘What about him?’ the man said, nodding in the vague direction of Nick. ‘Because it looks like you’re open for him.’

  ‘He’s family,’ I said, and I wasn’t smiling now, because it was no good smiling at them.

  The man looked at his friends and laughed. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s family,’ he said.

  ‘Just bring us three beers,’ one of his companions said. He was smaller, nastier, every inch the bully’s apprentice. ‘Cold ones from the fridge.’

  ‘The fridge hasn’t been delivered yet,’ I said, turning away. ‘Come back when we’re open.’

  Nick was watching Kai as she placed steaming bowls of rice noodle soup before Rory and Keeva. I stood by his side, but all Nick saw was the girl.

  ‘Do you know you’ve got your mouth open?’ I said.

  He tore his eyes away and blushed.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone like her,’ he said, not to me but to the remains of his giant prawns. ‘I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s completely unspoilt. When she’s around me, I feel like the sun has come out. And when she’s not there, it’s like – I don’t know – some plug has been pulled.’

  I looked at him for a while.

  ‘Kai’s a lovely girl,’ I said. ‘But would you feel the same way if you met her back home?’

  He shot me a fierce look. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  Everything, I thought. But I said nothing more.

  A tall man came out of the shadows of the trees. Before I saw his face I recognized the baseball cap – the yellow badge on the green hat, the Chinese dragon in dark glasses. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, it said.

  ‘The old place has come back to life,’ James Miles smiled, shaking my hand as he looked up and down Hat Nai Yang. ‘Remarkable.’

  The last time I had seen him had been when I built Tess the shelter on the beach. It felt like longer than a few months.

  ‘This is Nick Kazan,’ I said. ‘He’s a writer too.’

  Miles shook Nick’s hand and asked him a few polite questions about who he worked for, and how long he was staying. Nick’s replies were equally polite, but vague and slightly defensive. When Miles said goodbye and walked off down the beach road, Nick watched him go with an amused expression on his face.

  ‘Who’s the spook?’ he said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘That’s James Miles,’ I said. ‘He helped me out when I got into some trouble. He’s a travel writer. He writes – you know – guide books.’

  Nick laughed. ‘A travel writer? In jeans that have got creases? That would be a first. I bet he speaks the local lingo, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What books did he write?’ he asked me, and I shrugged.

  ‘Maybe he did knock out a couple of books,’ Nick said. ‘And maybe not. But I’ve met his type before. Run into them all over the world. Well-spoken Englishmen. Keeping an eye on British interests on foreign shores. Usually while drinking themselves to death – although not that one, by the look of him. The man’s a spook if ever I saw one,’ he said.

  ‘A spook?’ I said.

  ‘He’s British Intelligence, Tom,’ Nick said. ‘And you don’t get a lot of that in Phuket, do you?’

  I heard Keeva’s voice and looked up to see her chasing Mister across the sand. The dog – who never cared for the way my daughter held him – scampered up the three steps and into the shelter where the bikers were still waiting to be served.

  Keeva stopped dead at the bottom of the steps, looking up. There was a man at the top of the steps, holding our dog in his hands. He was the third biker, the one who had not spoken to me.

  I saw a powerfully built man who had drunk a lot of beer, smiling at my daughter, her dog held high in just one of his giant hands. Heavily muscled arms poked out of his black vest, and a huge belly sagged over his khaki shorts. The dog’s ears were pressed flat against its head in terror. I heard the sound of laughter, male laughter, coming from behind him. The man stood stroking the dog, holding it too tight, smiling down at my daughter.

  I was moving towards them, walking as quickly as I could without running and then, just as I reached Keeva, the big man with the belly came slowly down the three steps and handed my daughter the dog. It fell to the sand and took off, and Keeva went after him.

  There was more loud, dumb laughter from inside the shelter. The man went back to his friends. I went back to Nick and sat down with him, my hands shaking.

  ‘You all right?’ Nick said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  They will go away, I thought, they will get on their bikes and ride south, to the bars and the beer and the girls, because Hat Nai Yang will be too boring for them.

  But they did not go away for a long time. We let them sit in the shelter, and we said nothing, and I said nothing even when I saw them putting their feet up on the table, even when I saw that they were smoking out there, and I knew there were no ash trays, and they would have to stub their dog ends out on the beautiful tropical hardwood.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Tess asked me, when she came with homework for Keeva and Rory, and I stood in the kitchen that now had a beautiful wooden roof, and I watched the men on the beach.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  The trouble started when they were leaving. Just when I thought that they would ride back to the Bangla Road and we would never see them again. That’s when the trouble started. Because they decided to take Kai with them.

  Or maybe they were just pretending to take Kai with them. I don’t know. It was hard to tell if it was a bad joke or a bad plan. It didn’t matter.

  Night was falling fast and they were heading towards the archway covered in unlit fairy lights when Kai came through, carrying a tray with her dinner on. Fish curry and steamed rice and an apple juice.

  The small one, the bully’s apprentice, took away her tray while the one I had seen holding Mister picked Kai up as if she weighed nothing and threw her over his shoulder. The third one – the great big barrel of lard and lager who had spoken to me first – laughed himself red in the face. Then all at once I was in front of the man holding the girl. He looked at my face and frowned.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, my throat tight. ‘Put her down.’

  He did not put her down.

  He patted her butt thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do about it, little man?’

  I would wait for him to speak again and then I would hit him as hard as I could in the mouth. I had resigned myself to a beating. Probably any one of them could have taken me. But I knew that I could do enough to get him to put Kai down and leave her alone. I was sure of that.

  Then Nick was by my side.

  ‘Now you bloody listen to me,’ he said, and the short one, the bully’s apprentice, kicked him full in the face.

  It was the kind of kick that you only master after a lot of practice. He twisted the ball of his left foot into the sand and swung his right leg on a hinge that began at his hip, continued with his knee and ended at his ankle. I heard the sharp crack that a bone makes when it is breaking and Nick was down on his knees, the
blood from his nose already flowing.

  The big man put Kai down and it was only now that I saw she was crying, more from fury than fear, and in the same instant I saw that the Botans and Chatree had arrived from the kitchen and they were standing either side of me. Mr and Mrs Botan each had a carving knife in their hand. Chatree was looking at his sister and weeping with rage, and when he flew at them I caught his arm and would not let him go. I could hear Keeva and Rory quietly sobbing and that made me want to kill these men.

  ‘Ah,’ the big man said. ‘There’s plenty more where she came from. Come on, lads.’

  They ambled out of the Almost World Famous Seafood Grill and got on their rented Harleys, their leering commentary drowned out by the sound of the bikes. They tore off and we stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do.

  Then Kai and I took Nick up to the Botans’ house and we sat him on the edge of the bath with his head held back, an entire kitchen roll in his hand. Tess came in and said that he should lean his head forward to clot the blood and he did as he was told. Kai sat beside him, one hand lightly resting on the back of his neck. I stood there watching my friend until my wife pulled me away. She pulled me out of the bathroom, out of the house and on to the balcony.

  ‘Maybe I should take him to the hospital,’ I said.

  She kissed me hard on the mouth.

  ‘Leave them,’ Tess told me. ‘Just leave them to it, all right?’

  ‘But …’ I said.

  Then she kissed me again.

  And so we left them.

  Later, when Tess was sleeping in my arms, I touched the amulets that still hung from my neck as the night closed in around the two houses at the top of the green hill above Hat Nai Yang, and our little part of the island was silent apart from the constant buzzsaw of bikes on the highway, the sound of our breathing, and somewhere out there in the dreaming night, the lonely barking of a beach dog.

  26

  Nick and Kai were married the day we opened the Almost World Famous Seafood Grill.