Air (or Have Not Have)

barking of favourite dogs long since dead, the sloshing of water on burnt-out canoes long since rotted away.

Gradually she found she could make meals again, do some tidying-up, or sweep. She managed to banish her sister-in-law from her kitchen. Her husband Joe began to look relieved. His work clothes were ready again for him in the mornings, and his breakfast of steamed noodles.

But Mae would stand near her tiny kitchen window, to catch a glimpse of Mr Ken. Her heart would go out to him, with two young daughters late in life, leaving for his fields in the earliest dawn, long before her Joe. Her heart would go out to him, for the infant and small boy he had been, and for his plump face, thin waist, and the quick, nimble way he did things.

She kept thinking of Old Mrs Tung in the reeds. How the dress had come up, the trousers down, and how Mrs Tung had opened up to her lover, fully, completely, loose and abandoned like a sail in the wind, wanting him to fill her with babies, nothing held back.

Old Mrs Tung had known that, prim and delicate as she may have looked.

The fashion expert had not, for all her talk of beauty.

The lipsticks, the oil in the hair, the flower hairgrips – they were all signals; signals that said, Love me, I have not been loved. That was why they had power over her, why she was drawn to them, why she needed them. She had wanted to festoon herself with flags, saying, Come to me, I cannot come to you.

Now she simply wanted Mr Ken.

CHAPTER 4

It was night and Mae was half asleep in bed when she heard Joe come home.

Back from the Teahouse, Joe hissed and giggled at his brother Siao. Someone else was with them. 'So where is the wife?' a man asked. Mae recognized the voice: Sunni's husband had come back with them.

Joe murmured something polite and indistinct.

'Back at work? In the fashion business?'

Joe chuckled something; Sunni's husband chuckled back.

'Good to be the man of the house again, ah? Ha-ha!'

Joe told his brother Siao to fetch the whisky. Siao grumbled, fed up with Joe playing the older brother.

'Oh! No – the good stuff for Mr Haseem!' Joe exclaimed in frustration. A clink of glasses. Joe would be pink- faced in the evening and red-eyed in the morning. Joe was worst when drunk; he simply became a sheepish goon. Why couldn't Sunni's husband just come bearing good wishes and go?

Because, thought Mae, Sunni's husband does not bear good wishes. Mae lay still and focused with her ears.

'I can help,' said Sunni's husband. Mae could almost hear the wallet unflap, unfold. She kicked her way free from the sheets, and threw on a robe. Then she thought: No. That is not enough. She needed to look like a fashion expert.

Everything worked against her: the dark and the slovenly disorder the alcove had become. She tried to move quietly; she wanted to appear suddenly, in order, pristine, to say, We do not need your help Sunni's-man, sir.

'How much?' Joe exclaimed in wonder.

Mae fumbled for her best dress in the dark. Her hand struck a hanger, and she felt the dress. The curtain- folds of the collar seemed to be right. She hauled it on over her head and ran her fingers through the bird's-nest tangle of her hair. She patted the windowsill and found a hairgrip. Hands shaking with urgency, she pulled her hair back as tightly as she could bear it and slipped on the grip.

Everything felt lopsided – her face, the grip, the dress hanging off one shoulder but straining around her belly. Shoes. Where were her shoes?

Mr Haseem's voice drawled as if over a woman. 'Enough to clean up the old barn, set up a byre, buy a few goats. Ah? Ha-ha.'

Don't, Joe, fool, that's how he does it, he loans too much money and then takes the farm in payment. Sandals. Inappropriate with a best dress, but anything, now. I feel like a haystack, thought Mae. And pulled back her curtain with gracious slowness.

Around her table, Sunni's husband was leaning back, at home, feet on a chair, rice-whisky bottle opened and half empty.

'Wife!' called Joe, as if overjoyed to see her. Siao looked up in drunken dolefulness.

Faysal Haseem appraised her with narrow eyes, and a grin.

'We are honoured,' said Sunni's husband, pushing a whisky glass to her in her own kitchen. 'You wear your best dress for us.'

'She couldn't find another!' Joe thought this was very funny and laughed, opening his mouth like a duck's bill.

Mae said, 'You are very kind to offer us help.'

'Aren't I?' said Sunni's-man, and lifted up the glass.

'He has already loaned us one hundred riels!' said Joe.

'Oh,' said Mae. 'Then you must give them back.'

'Naw,' growled Sunni's husband, and sloshed the whisky around in his mouth.

'One hundred riels, wife! A new barn! Goats! We will be rich.'

'Mr Haseem is far too kind.' Mae sat down, trying to get her business brain to work. She was not up to cunning. 'But how will you pay him back, husband?'

'Oh, we can come to some kind of arrangement,' said Joe, besotted, foolish.

'No problem about payments!' said Sunni's husband, not so drunk that his eyes did not fix on Mae and twinkle with mischief. 'If it comes to it, you can pay out of your fashion business.'

'Ah,' said Joe in scorn. 'We will not need that.'

'You do not have it,' said Mae, with a sick and weary chuckle. Could not Joe see that? Mae had been ill through the spring fashion season.

'We will have an ox, two oxen,' said Joe, with a bit of swagger.

'Two oxen cannot pay back one hundred riels.' Mae clasped her head to keep her brains together. All she could do was play the game as if everything were above board.

So she asked straight out: 'Please, Mr Haseem, there is no way for us to pay the money back. This is a very bad business proposition for you.'

'I think it is a good one,' he said, red-faced, knowing exactly what he was doing.

'You will lose the money!' Oh, she had been a fool to try to dress! Why did she dress? To show him they still had an extra source of money? All the village knew now that was unlikely. All her dressing-up had done was delay her until it was too late. So much for fashion.

'I won't lose the money,' said Sunni's husband. 'Will I, Joe?'

'Certainly not,' said Joe, dazzled. He unfolded the actual money in a fan.

'Joe, you are drunk,' Mae said in desperation. She looked at Siao, who took light little puffs of his cigarette and gazed at his shoes. He didn't like this, either.

'Siao,' she pleaded. 'Tell him. This is your father's house! Tell him that we won't be able to pay back the money!'

Siao glanced up at her and rubbed his whole face, once, with his hand. He had managed to grow a wispy beard, and around his mouth were strings of muscle. He flicked ash. 'Mr Haseem has been very kind, but we've all hit the bottle. Perhaps we should say thank you, Mr Haseem, and give our answer in the morning.'

'Answer in the morning?' Joe said. 'A friend generously offers money and you insult him by saying we have to consider?'

'I am saying that perhaps Mr Haseem and ourselves will feel different in the morning,' Siao said.

Joe glanced sideways at Mr Haseem. He needed to look like the boss of the house. 'Sometimes it is necessary