Along the road to the station there were two or three other second-hand stalls that had a few old books amongst the bric-a-brac. She flicked through them, but most were old novels discarded by people passing through. At the last stall though, Laura noticed a thin volume tucked inside another book. It was covered in brown paper, like a school exercise book. She pulled it out, curious. There was no title on the front cover, so she opened it up and looked at the front page: ‘A Short History of the Thai-Burma Railway.’
‘How much is this?’ she asked the stallholder, who eyed her shrewdly, clearly assessing how much she might be persuaded to pay. Once again, she paid well over the odds for the pamphlet.
Later, as she sat on a wooden seat in the cramped third class carriage she opened the little book. Curious about what might be on the cover, she ripped off the brown paper. There was a crude photograph of the bridge, the title in capitals and underneath that the author’s name: Dr. Arthur Stone.
Her heart stood still. Arthur Stone. She couldn’t believe her luck. It was really no more than a pamphlet, printed in courier script like a draft manuscript. Holding her breath, she turned to the back cover: ‘Arthur Stone read Military History at Oxford University and has researched and charted the history of many conflicts. He is currently curator of records at the Imperial War Museum, London.’
She flipped back to look at the date. 1965. That was a long time ago. She wondered if he was still alive.
She flicked through the pages and read the preface written by the author:
‘This work is the culmination of several years of study of the conditions endured by Allied prisoners-of-war in the Far East at the hands of the Japanese. I spent a long time interviewing surviving prisoners-of-war in the late 1940s and early 1950s. All had been profoundly affected by their experiences. Many felt shame that they had survived when their comrades did not. Many had been discouraged from speaking about it. Most did not want their identities revealed, which is why these accounts are unattributed.’
She read on. By the time the train started to rattle through the outskirts of Bangkok, she had finished. She slipped it back into her backpack, disappointed. It was no more than a summary of interviews given by several prisoners: details of conditions in the camps, the lack of medical supplies, the harsh treatment by the Japanese and Korean guards, the malnutrition and disease, the camaraderie between the men that got them through their ordeal. It told her nothing new, and certainly no more than the diaries she had read in the museums and the few books she had been able to find on the subject.
She stared out the window at the suburbs of Bangkok. Sprawling and ramshackle, built along canals and dirt tracks, wooden stilted houses set amongst lush vegetation and the occasional shining modern block flashed past her. Her thoughts returned to Luke. She imagined him waking up, bleary-eyed and hung-over, and discovering her note. What had he felt when he read it? Would he try to follow her? She doubted it. He would take up with those two Australians and find a suitable beach bar to hang out at until his funds ran dry. It occurred to her suddenly that they had return tickets booked for the same flight in a fortnight’s time. She resolved to go to the airline office in Bangkok and try to change hers. Even if she had to pay a fee, that was preferable to the pain and embarrassment of spending twelve hours in a cramped airline seat next to him.
When the train arrived at Thonburi Station in Bangkok, she took a taxi to Kao San Road, where she and Luke had stayed the first night they had arrived from London. She avoided the guesthouse, where the friendly Chinese owner was bound to ask awkward questions, and found a quieter place at the other end of the road, where she rented a single room for one night.
She ate her evening meal at a food-stall, sitting at a plastic table in the steamy street, watching the owner rustle up delicious concoctions in a fast-moving wok over a gas flame. She sipped a bottle of Singha Beer and enjoyed the feeling of being alone in a busy place, free to do what she wanted and go where she wanted without having to negotiate, persuade or compromise. She wondered why she had ever agreed to Luke coming along in the first place. It felt so right to be alone here.
The next day she got up early and went out onto the street while the saffron clad monks were making their daily procession for alms before morning prayer. She took a tuk-tuk to the airline office located in a modern shopping centre and changed her ticket for a day in the week after Luke’s flight. Later she went to Hualamphong, the main train station, and booked a sleeper train to Butterworth in Malaysia, which would leave that evening.
Before she left the guesthouse, she went to the lobby and dialled the number of the house in Highbury New Park from the phone behind the reception counter. She wanted to tell somebody that she was setting off to another country. The faint distant tone rang for a long time.
Ken’s voice was obscured by buzzing and crackling. It sounded thousands of miles away.
‘I thought I’d just let you know, there’s been a change of plan,’ she had to shout. ‘I’m going to Malaysia
