by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 34
"Well, do you look at that - the first time I’ve seen you in a vertical position."
Jim's clean, blue pyjamas contrasted starkly with the brown, stick-like arms protruding from the short sleeves. He was sitting in a chair next to his bed, when Tom Hanrahan arrived the following afternoon but pushed himself up, walked the two steps to take the outstretched hand and tried to smile. "Good afternoon. The doctor said I should stay for another day. Unless I have another experience similar to the one at Lek's cafe then there is no reason to detain me, but I need to take some medication daily."
Jim returned to his chair and Tom sat on the other side of the bed in a white tee shirt with ‘O'Sullivan's’ emblazoned in green across the front. "I brought you this," he said handing over a paper bag. "But don't tell the doctor."
Jim looked inside and pulled out a bottle of Irish whisky. "Thank you."
"From the airport and to remind myself of my local back home."
"And where, precisely, is home?" Jim asked.
What followed was Tom's family history, where he lived, three grown up children living away and the death a year ago of his wife, Maeve. It ended with a phrase Jim decided he would always remember. "Life can be a bloody depressing way to spend your time.......you know what I mean, Jim?"
Jim had nodded. "Life is not supposed to be easy. You only get one go at it, it's not a rehearsal, there's no script and circumstances play odd tricks."
A nurse brought iced lemon tea and the conversation edged forward until Tom asked: "So what will you do when you get out of here, Jim?"
"More to the point, what will you do? Write your story?"
"There is no story. I found you. Nothing more to be said."
"Hmm. That's utter nonsense. I suspect your dismissal had nothing to do with a refusal to obey instructions or striking a fellow reporter, Tom Hanrahan. You were probably dismissed for total incompetence. Of course there's a story. There's always a story for a good reporter. You could even invent one - others would. A few quotes, a few misquotes, a nice description of my swarthy looks, say you found me so drunk somewhere that I admitted who I was and that I was running a brothel in Bangkok. Use your imagination for goodness sake. Photograph me and do a nice Photoshop retouch showing me in the clutches of a Thai bar girl. You can't lose. You could do it. You've got a decent way with the spoken word if not the written one."
"That's just it, Jim. I can't. I need to report truth - no frills, no opinions, just facts. I started out wanting to do investigative reporting but never got the chance."
"Then start now. There's one hell of a story I can give you. What's more it's unfolding as we speak - which reminds me to check my emails - urgently. I should have been doing that two days ago at Lek's cafe but some blighter had taken my corner table and I wasn't feeling quite myself that morning."
Tom raised his grey to auburn eyebrows and saw something in Jim's eyes - alertness, hardness, intensity, seriousness. Jim Smith was on to something. The bit was still gripped firmly between his teeth, held fast by the same utter determination that had always characterised him. So what was he up to? Appearances apart, he hadn't changed much. He watched Jim's lean form get up and walk slowly across the room in the blue pyjamas. At the window he looked out onto the hospital grounds.
"I intend to return to England," he said with his back to Tom. "At least, for a while. There are things I need to sort out and other matters that are coming to a head. And......" he stopped himself. "Let's walk outside, The garden looks good and it's cooler now."
They walked along a stretch of corridor and through a double glass door leading onto a stone courtyard and then a lawn. For several minutes, Jim sauntered around talking quietly, almost incoherently. Tom followed, trying to hear but increasingly aware that Jim was actually talking to himself. Behind a clump of Manila palms, was an ornamental pond with water lilies. The water shimmered in the low, early evening sun. Jim, barefoot, sat down, crossed his legs and put his hands together in his lap. Tom also sat down, clumsily, his legs, feet and white trainers outstretched before him. The red water lily flowers were closing up.
“I must paint them " Jim nodded.
"You paint, Jim?"
"A little." he frowned and squeezed his eyelids together. Time, he felt, was running out. He wanted his youth back again. Big ambitions were behind him, but he had no wish to stop now just because he was getting older. It was the unfinished business. It was becoming urgent, taking far too long. And he had no wish to take medication every day for the rest of his life. Thoughts of Margaret then. Margaret liked gardens.
Tom watched Jim's moving lips and his closed eyes that flickered from point to point as if he was seeing things in his mind. His hair was a mess - long and straggling. His brown body, clad in the blue pyjamas, looked thin, undernourished, like a prisoner from a concentration camp. He had changed - physically if not facially - since Tom had last seen him. But for the long hair and beard, he was almost unrecognisable. But it was definitely the same Jim, and Tom knew why he had come. Somewhere, he had the feeling that the man might appreciate a chance to chat, to talk openly. But there had been no sign of this or even a desire to glance at him when he had walked into the cafe. Jim had deliberately ignored him and possibly even hated him for the intrusion into his space. It was in the cafe that he had first seen Jim's lips moving, talking to himself. He had watched him fidgeting as though he had remembered something urgent he had to do. But then he had suddenly stood up, tottered and collapsed. But, as soon as Jim had fallen he, himself, had rushed over driven not by the feeling that it might lead to some form of rapport or even a good story but by a feeling of respect and compassion.
"Shall we go back now?" Jim broke the silence and stood up. Easily, Tom thought, as he himself struggled to unbend stiff legs.
"Jim," Tom said, holding onto Jim's thin, sinewy arm. "Excuse me for asking but did you never find yourself a new woman out here because I get the feeling you live alone. Sure 'tis a grand place for a romantic soul like yourself."
"Is that what I am? A romantic soul?"
"Sure it is. I see it in your eyes. You see beauty and colour and you say you’re an artist. It's a fine talent to have but don’t you feel a need for someone to share it with?"
Jim looked away, conscious that the question struck surprisingly close to what he had just been thinking, but he kept walking."I left a woman behind in England," he said.
"Sure you could start again."
"Look at me, Tom. What woman in her right mind would even want to be seen talking to, let alone living with, a man like me - wearing blue pyjamas as well."
"Some women would appreciate the man inside the pyjamas, Jim."
"Mmm, Perhaps the man inside is as much of a mess as the man outside."
"I don't think so. In fact I'm damned sure that's complete and utter nonsense if you don't mind me saying so."
Jim was breathing hard, his chest heaving.
"So when was the last liaison with a woman then Jim?"
"Are you interviewing me, you Irish rascal?" There was a pause. "During a short-lived but intense relationship with Tiger beer. I woke up one morning and there she was. I was in the middle of sorting out certain, private matters but we were together off and on for four long months. For me it was an intense and highly enlightening time. I learned a lot about life, about living, about myself. I discovered a side to my own character that had been completely hidden. I suppose I learned the basis of pure Buddhism, Buddhism without the painted concrete images and the gaudy temples that sometimes reminds me too much of the Catholic church. I have always been frugal and money has never meant much to me other than as a measure of commercial acumen. So, having sorted out my main financial commitments back in England I learned how to live from day to day on a shoestring of a budget.
In fact I bought the house I now live in, and the small plot of surrounding land, to give to her and her young daughter Oy who was just three at the time we met. Noy was thirty six. I was si
xty something and a lot better looking and fitter than I am now. It seems such a long time ago."
"So what happened, Jim?"
"I saw them off on a bus going to Kanchanaburi to see Noy's parents. I waved them goodbye through the bus window. They both smiled and waved back at me. It was raining heavily. There was a terrible road accident and they were both killed." Jim sniffed. "So there, my Irish friend, you have another long, true, interesting and ultimately heart rending story that I could elaborate on. Neither would it need any of the fabrication you apparently detest."
Then he walked away, still breathing heavily.