by Alex Gunn
I wondered if I’d simply spent a bit too long under deep cover, or whether this new life was really it? Would it even be possible to return to our old life, our old home and slip back into a comfortable routine, as if nothing had happened?
But as I thought this I also had the feeling that something else has happened. Something deep down had shifted and begun to take root, without me knowing.
It could be that, or it could be the film I watched last night with our youngest son where Vin Diesel realises that his partner in crime is really an undercover cop, who in turn, quite wonderfully, realises that he can no longer be a cop.
Feeling rather weary and tired, I decided that right now was perhaps not the time to dwell on all this, especially with Khun Sonthaya and Starsky and Hutch wondering why I had gone very quiet and was staring silently at the Jet Ski deep in thought. It was time to leave and get another plastic bag of strawberry fanta.
We sat on a little concrete bench in the car park in the shade of a pomegranate tree and quietly sipped our drinks. Khun Sonthya refers to me as his brother and that’s exactly how I felt. I felt like his little brother, and suddenly I was overwhelmingly grateful that I was sitting here next to him. Also, being the kindest man on the planet, he explained to me that this was all good, that everything was meant to be:
“When I was little my mother sent for me. She had gone ahead of us to America and I was looking after my little brother at my uncle’s house in Chiang Rai. We had never been on an airplane before and we travelled alone from Chiang Mai to Los Angeles. I remember that when I got on the plane and sat down my feet didn’t reach the floor. I was so small. I looked out of the window and saw Chiang Mai below me and I knew that some day, no matter what might happen to us in America I would come back home. Chiang Mai is a special place and things happen here for a reason… Perhaps your bike was stolen to prevent you from dying in a crash on the way home.” He added cheerfully.
“Maybe Son…maybe,” I said, “…but if I haven’t got a bike I can’t get home, can I.”
And we looked at each other and both laughed the biggest red tongued laugh that Chiang Mai had ever seen.