Killed at the Whim of a Hat

repartee and laughter bounced back and forth but I would have needed a northern Thai/southern Thai simultaneous translation to appreciate the half of it. By far the funniest thing that morning was the forensic disaster.

I’d taken a number of instant digital pictures of the skeletal couple that I doubted papers like the Mail would use. But I was sure I could sell them to 191, the ghoul magazine in Bangkok. Nothing was too gory for them. I was wondering how to spice up the photos somehow when Uncle Ly, the dig’s own stand-up comic, climbed down into the van through the hole in the roof and posed between the skeletons. His nephew took a picture with his cell phone and I was just lining up to do the same when the inevitable happened.

I suppose somebody should have asked why two skeletons could remain intact despite the absence of those physiological nuts and bolts that hold us all together. Whatever the answer, it was a poor glue, because as soon as Uncle Ly made his V sign over the shoulder of the driver, the latter collapsed like a stack of coins. We all fell silent. Then, as if they’d been joined by some unseen thread, the passenger — and I wasn’t the only one to see this — tilted her head slightly to the right and nodded before joining her beau on the floor of the cab like a faithful spouse. In sickness and in health and in pieces.

It was the sight of a thoroughly embarrassed Uncle Ly attempting to put the two bodies back together that had us in stitches. Constable Ma Yai and Constable Ma Lek came rushing over to the dig site and for a moment I was afraid they’d reprimand us for laughing at destroyed evidence, arrest us even. But first one, then the other officer made comments that merely stoked the hilarity of the onlookers and further flustered poor Ly. When it was clear the skeletons would never be the same again, the two young officers made a very good call. It was the vibration of the digging that had caused the couple to go to pieces, they decided. Everyone agreed. It seemed thoroughly unsociable not to. On my ride home I was mystified at how easily I’d become complicit in an act of deception. It must have been something in the air.

I arrived back at the resort at eleven fifty, which left me half an hour before my lunch date. As I’d deserted the mackerel half-gutted that morning, I broke the news to the family that this would have to be a Mama instant noodle day. I’d planned to have a shower after riding under a big-bellied sun for half an hour but the little god of electrical supply chose that exact moment to dig his trident into the celestial fuse box and the whole area was plunged back to the Ayuthaya period. This happened so often in our little dark corner of heaven that I’d long since stopped swearing under my breath. My choices were: a dip in the sea that would leave me itching through lunch, or a plastic dipper from the giant jar out back that was breeding more cultures than the natural history museum. I chose the sea.

Major Mana was as amenable as a Venus flytrap. I sat opposite him squirming in my seat as the salt dried on my skin. In my bag I had the bulk of my report written at the scene. After lunch I would make a few phone calls, type it up on my laptop and send it off from the computer game shop. Being a Saturday I could be sure of a skirmish with the teenagers but I had my first real story in a year and a few bruised children was a small price to pay. All I needed from the major were the compulsory names and ranks of all the officers involved and a quote that would instill faith in the community that the police were firmly in control. In Chiang Mai we had a stock of such quotations for the ranking officers to choose from because they were often stuck for relevant grammatical phrases. I didn’t have my list with me so I had to let Mana baffle readers with the murder/disaster/accident/suicide theory. The business side of our lunch had been concluded in ten minutes and I was eager to be away from there and send off my story. But as I was a visitor to the south from Chiang Mai, the major had ordered delicious local mackerel and sea bass and watched for my reaction as I consumed my meal. I managed a smile.

He had, as expected, presumed to have a bottle of ‘Hinnisy’ brandy placed on the table for our arrival as if it were a normal service of the restaurant. I knew from a report we’d done for the Mail that some of these fake rural liquors could cause deformities in the newborn and rot the teeth clean out of your mouth by the third glass. But Major Mana’s superglossed teeth gave me confidence and I matched him swig for swig through the meal. I can drink. I have no idea where my constitution comes from. My mother has to merely sniff a mosquito coil and she’s singing old Bird Thongchai Mclntyre ballads. So it has to be down to the genes of my mysterious missing father. Perhaps he was an alcoholic. Mair is ever mute on the subject. I have no recollection of him at all. Sissi, the eldest, remembers a handsome, funny man who came and went and came…and went. That’s all we have of ‘Dad’. No photos. No fond reminiscences from Mair. Just genes that don’t seem to match.

So, anyway, we were at the fruit plate and well down the Hinnisy and Major Mana was slurring and his volume had risen. With a wink to the restaurant owner he’d slid his chair around so he could whisper secrets into my ear. As he talked about himself the entire meal, I didn’t have to lie about where I lived. He insisted on mixing our drinks from the rack of ingredients standing beside his chair. Without exception he’d put twice as much brandy in my glass and, without exception, I’d wait till he was distracted and switch glasses on him. Twice, he’d told me that he’d booked a motel room in case I wanted to rest after lunch. All the class of a dollop of lizard dung — I mean, really. Perhaps he’d never before had a lunch date who didn’t sport fur or scales.

At one stage he failed to return from the toilet. Given the time it had taken for him to find the outhouse in the first place, I wasn’t terribly surprised. A penis is a lot smaller than a toilet. I gave him five minutes, poured the remainder of my drink into the ice bucket and walked down to the main road where I’d parked my motorcycle.

“Did you have a nice Sunday?” Mair asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

But it was Saturday.

I still hadn’t forgiven her for what she’d done to us and I’d planned a full year of social disobedience, but as always it occurred to me that my acidity didn’t get through her leaden mother casing. Most of the time she was Mair: sweet, happy to listen to our problems, unintentionally funny, just normal Mair. But there were times she frightened us. Her slide had started with little things. You’d see a trail of ants leading to a cupboard and you’d find an open caramel pudding in there.

“Mair, why isn’t the caramel pudding in the fridge?”

“It isn’t?” She’d shake her head. “That’s funny. That’s where I put it, child. I can’t think who’d have moved it.” Then there were times she’d try to change TV channels with her cell phone or to get the local radio station on the microwave. It was probably a good thing that we’d moved to southern Thailand rather than southern Chicago. Mair would pull down the shutter and go to bed and leave fifty bags of rice outside the shop for the night. I can’t think why nobody ever helped themselves.

Since we moved down here, Mair had also started to develop inappropriate relationships. To understand this Thailand of ours you have to realize that some things are endemic. A politician, for example, cannot, by the very definition of a politician, be entirely honest. Honest politicians have no influential friends to help them over the first hurdle — vote buying. Then there’s the business community. Businessmen and women have no social obligations. The whole point of being in business is to screw — politely if possible but not compulsorily — the next guy. Which brings us to dogs. Millions are born every day. In human terms, the vast majority will not make it past their nursery school graduation. Only the fit survive which means teenaged dogs are already mean and nasty and thoroughly unlovable. Helping an infant doggy, therefore, is tantamount to defying the laws of the jungle.

But something happened in the heart of Mair when we moved south. It was as if Mother Teresa had possessed her soul. In Chiang Mai, she’d been perfectly content to chase away strays with a broom. But here she suddenly couldn’t pass a crippled animal without bursting into tears. She’d stop and talk to them. I mean, words. The type of googoo language you use to confuse newborn babies. Normally a stray would flee in panic at the sight of a person but there was obviously the scent of marrow about my mother.

The first sack of bones she brought home had elbows all over. The mutt had so little meat on her she could have been the Kombi driver’s family pet. Mair fed her and nursed her to health and named her John. Within the month, John was strutting around like Bambi, not quite coordinated but with that unmistakable swagger of hope. For the next six months the dog had nothing to worry about other than how quickly she could grow into her enormous feet and how many people she could charm with her damp dog smile. She didn’t fool me. She wasn’t tethered or caged but she stayed. I tried to explain the concept of Stockholm syndrome to my mother but she insisted that the dog remained with us because she loved us.

Buoyed by this miracle of life, Mair then picked up a naked and squeaking grub-like creature from beside the road one day. If not at death’s doorstep, it was, at least, in the front garden. She recognized a potential that none of us could see and took the bundle to Dr. Somboon, the livestock specialist. Dr. Somboon had set up his after-