by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 8
At Lek's cafe In Thailand, Lek was shuffling around in his stained tee shirt and baggy black trousers. He'd just watched Jim Smith wander off into the hot sun muttering something in English to himself.
Lek didn't really understand the old 'farang' he'd been calling 'Jim' since he'd suddenly arrived three years ago. But Lek liked him. Despite the beard and long hair and that his lips moved because he talked to himself, Jim had been good for business. Jim, Lek thought, had a natural flair as a businessman. But for Jim there would be no red flashing sign outside Lek's Cafe saying, in English, "Cold Beer and WiFi" and never any young backpackers from faraway places or local children playing computer games.
Lek's customers, even those who came in with their backpacks and mobile phones tempted by the red sign, could hardly not notice the old 'farang' sitting with his bottle of beer and staring at the screen of his old and dusty lap top computer in the corner. But with eye contact difficult on account of Jim's long hair and beard, they rarely, if ever, spoke to him. For this courtesy Jim seemed quietly appreciative and would reciprocate their generosity by ignoring them completely. What was it about farang's, wondered Lek. So far from wherever their home was, why not talk to one another. With Jim gone, Lek continued to conduct his business by wiping tables and mopping the floor.
"Want to come up, mother? Mind the third rung. It's loose."
Jim Smith had been talking to himself and his long dead mother throughout the ride home. As he propped the motorcycle beneath the house amongst the dry, worm-eaten firewood and carried the duffel bag up the wooden steps onto what he referred to as his 'veranda', the conversation continued. Three years was a long time to have been living like this, but he had made the most of it - liked it in fact. What he missed was conversation.
"Inane chatter about pettiness is something I can manage perfectly well without, mother. Constructive dialogue is what I miss. Saying what you think aloud re-enforces the reasoning behind the thoughts."
He opened the rickety wooden door, lowered his head, ventured into the dark and stiflingly hot interior and stood for a moment allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. "Sorry, mother - I've done it again. I got my feet muddy earlier and there is mud on the steps. Go careful."
Living alone in a tropical hideaway with few personal possessions had not been part of Jim Smith's original plans for life after sixty five but it suited him. "I've never been a man for material possessions, clothes, domestic appliances, cars or holidays."
To appear to be a harmless, poverty-stricken old opt-out from Western society content with painting, bird watching, private rituals and lonely meditation was perfect cover for Jim Smith's ongoing campaign. "Margaret would be shocked though, if she knew how I lived, mother. Margaret liked spending money and shopping."
There was a brief pause as he considered his habit of talking to himself. It was getting worse, but it didn't seem to matter so he did nothing to discourage it.
"Merely thinking words reduces them to insignificance. Spoken words are remembered, mother. Thoughts are so easily forgotten. Anyway...........that aside, a pleasant enough ride back from town. Give it a few days for a reply from Jan and Jonathan and then you must make a firm decision, old chap. Regret the consequences of the decision if you must, but never regret the decision itself."
He put the duffel bag with the laptop on the top of a pile of boxes, re-emerged into the bright sun and slumped into his old wicker chair. "It's not revenge, mother. Revenge is for the weak. Righting the wrong is for the strong." Then he stood up again.
"Work," he said even louder than normal. "Got to get a move on. Time to do some painting, mother. I'm a man of strict routine. Routine is part of efficiency, of self discipline and of unerring commitment to a job that, once started, must be completed totally and utterly to ones satisfaction. Routine means good time management."
Painting, every day, before it got too hot or when it cooled down a little was a serious routine that Jim rarely wavered from, so he went down the steps again. Painting was done by perching on a plastic stool inside a flimsy structure made out of strips of wood covered in mosquito netting and tied to the lower branches of the mango tree with nylon rope.
"My studio, mother, and we'll need the electric fan on today. It's warm. Just aim it at your legs. Anything higher and the paper flaps and I can't paint."
Facing Jim was his painting of a mynah bird, the paper held by two bulldog clips to a sheet of plywood. This was propped against another plank of wood to keep it well away from the trunk of the mango tree. "It's the mut see-deng - the red ants - they march in line up and down the tree and right across my wet paint. It's partly why I prefer water colours to oils......but, where there's a will there's a way, I work with both."
Jim was only moderately pleased with the mynah bird. Its eye was still not quite as he wanted. Eyes depicted mood, feeling and emotion and he felt he had been getting better at it, but the mynah seemed to be looking away from the viewer as if distracted. Unusually, he'd struggled with it for three days and it was not getting any better. He gave it one more go, looked at it sideways - "A little better I suppose" - then got up, tied the entrance to the studio with a short length of nylon string, picked up the drinking water bucket and carried it into the shade of the dog-koon tree. Here, he sat down, cross legged.
"Same bloody nightmare again last night, mother. Then the headache this morning. Perhaps it's the coffee." He paused, took a mouthful of water from the plastic mug. "So, what made me wake up this morning? Oh yes, that bloody photo. Why on earth Margaret thought it was me is a mystery. It didn't even look like me. The man's hair was shorter, tidier, middle parting, probably a bloody pony tail as well and I've never been to such clubs in my life. I've been in bars and so on when abroad with clients, of course, but only occasionally. It went with the job. It was business. Serious stuff. But I have no idea what goes on in clubs like that in Soho and neither has Margaret.
"She probably imagines otherwise decent men behave badly or oddly once inside them, mother, that they used make-up and aftershave, dress strangely, do their hair to impress the waiting women in their short skirts, fluffy rabbit tails and long ears. But I know darned well I didn't leave the flat after ten thirty and certainly not to visit a nightclub in Soho."