stability.'
I wondered whether to point out that Thailand had entertained no fewer than thirty-nine prime ministers since 1932, seventeen of whom were planted after military coups. But you never won an argument with Grandad, even when you were right.
'The Malays stuck with the Brits,' he said. 'The Indians. The Australians. And look at all them. Democracy is government by the people. These countries aren't run by halfwits in tin hats bleeding their countries of all their natural resources and treating their citizens like unpaid coolies. If they'd just stuck with the Brits, we wouldn't have any Burmese on Thai soil. Not a one. We'd be sending our laborers over there to build high-rises and roads.'
Grandad was a man who generally dribbled words sparingly. On the few occasions he let the floodgates open, you appreciated those dribbly moments that much more.
'That's really sad,' said Mair.
'Just pay attention to the lessons learned from history,' said Grandad.
'They can't even count,' said Mair.
We all paused.
'Who can't count, Mair?' Arny asked.
'The Burmese children,' she replied. 'And they're so adorable in their little clothes and powdery cheeks. It hadn't occurred to me that they weren't in school. I shall build one.
'Mair, you aren't nearly connected enough for a Nobel prize, and will you stop spending all this money we don't have?' I pleaded. 'We can't even afford to clean up the shop or salvage the latrine from beneath the mighty ocean, let alone set up a school.'
'It shouldn't cost much,' she said, her mind already seeing the smiling faces sitting in the front row, the hands raised, the queue for the pencil sharpener. 'We could hire ourselves a little teacher. A Burmese teacher wouldn't cost very much. And we could drive over to Ranong and buy books, and I could teach Thai once a week, or sewing.'
And off she went, describing her Burmese school, the Noys smiling and offering suggestions, Grandad Jah grumbling that nobody ever listened to him and collecting the lunch plates, Arny smiling like the little boy whose mother told fantastic stories to three little children with no father. And me, unappreciated, carrying the worries of the world. I reached into my pocket, palmed two antidepressants and washed them down with the last of my Coca-Cola. And to my utter surprise, with my mother sitting to my left yakking on about blackboard paint, a familiar sound emerged from Mair's cabin next door. It was the sound of a headboard clattering against a wooden wall.
7.
They Say Love Is More or Less a Gibbon Thing
'Are you out of your mind?' I asked, and immediately knew it was a silly question. Of course she was.
Grandad Jah and I sat opposite Mair, who was seated on her bed with the monkey sprawled across her lap.
'What in the world possessed you to kidnap a monkey?' asked Grandad.
'She needed me,' said Mair.
'She told you that?'
'Not in words.'
'Well, that's a relief.'
'She told me with this,' said Mair. She lifted the animal's left leg and rolled her over. The monkey's back was diced with welts, some quite fresh. Her hair was patchy, and there were sores everywhere. Ari, the monkey handler, used to bring her once a month to collect coconuts from our trees. The first time they'd arrived I'd been relatively amused by the animal's skill. But from then on, it was just a monkey on a rope and I can't say I paid much attention. I'd go to the truck when it was all over, count the nuts, and take our share of the profits. It looked like only Mair had taken any notice of the monkey.
'Mair,' I said, 'we had seven policemen here, and you had a kidnapped monkey in your room.'
'I didn't kidnap her. I rescued her. And why should the police search my room? We were the victims, weren't we?'
'Why didn't you tell us?' I asked.
'I didn't think you'd let me keep her in the room. But I was sure it couldn't have been much of a secret. She was causing such a fuss. You certainly heard the noise.'
'Yes, but I thought it was…'
'What?'
'Never mind.'
'What are you planning to do with it?' asked Grandad.
'There's a gibbon rehabilitation project in Phuket,' she said. 'I was thinking of sending her over there.'
Grandad Jah stood, cracked a few bones, and walked over to get a closer look at the monkey, who bared her teeth at him. Mair monkey-whispered and the animal melted back onto her lap. I imagined her doing the same to me when I was a snarling two-year-old.
'One,' said Grandad, 'this isn't a gibbon. It's a macaque. And two, Phuket's six hours away. You going to put it on the bus?'
'I haven't been in a hurry to think it through, Father,' she said. 'She still hasn't recovered, and I'm not going to send her anywhere till she's better. Now stop picking on me.'
I left my mother and grandfather to it. There really was nothing I could do. We had a monkey. And I secretly cursed that monkey for stimulating my libido under false pretenses. But an incontrovertible process had begun that first headboard-clattering night and now I had an itch to scratch. There was only one man in Maprao who came even vaguely close to my 'type.' I'd been married for three years to a man who wasn't my 'type' at all. I'd dated a platoon of men who weren't my 'type.' And I'd arrived at the conclusion that perhaps my 'type' and my 'realistic options' were so far removed I might have to compromise.
Ed the grass man was leading the field in my compromise chart. He was younger than me, which perhaps played on some fantasy I'd never admit to. He had dreamy chocolate eyes and…No, look. I don't aspire to writing romance fiction. Forget what the tall slim stack of muscle looked like. I was desperate. He was divorced. And it wasn't a coincidence that it had been Ed the grass man there with me in my erotic dream. So, why not? As I rode in search of him, it hadn't occurred to me how totally against character and culture and common sense this potential seduction was. I was being led by a force much greater than my brain. I'd taken the bicycle in search of Ed. I figured all that pedaling might calm my ardor by the time I found him. It wouldn't do to appear too needy. Lust may have addled my mind, but it hadn't damaged my common sense. I had a condom in my bag. It made me feel terribly naughty. This would be an encounter never to be forgotten but not one to be remembered every nappy-changing, school-uniform-darning, prison-visiting day for the rest of my life.
I missed Ed at his house, at the boatyard, and at the orchard whose cut grass bore his precisely manicured signature. But I found him at an empty building site, where he was assembling a fitted wardrobe. He was certainly a versatile young man. The bricklayers and electricians and cement Tenderers had completed their tasks, leaving Ed to finish the woodwork himself. Destiny had placed him here in front of me in a future bedroom.
'Ed?' I said, and in my mind's eye we crashed into one another, locked in a passionate embrace. Our lips mashing one against the other. He looked up from his chiseling and wiped sweat from his eyes.
'Jimm?'
Everything was going so well. I sat on a metal grinder carry-case and crossed my legs. I was wearing shorts. Nothing erotic, but he was a man. Just the sight of skin drove them insane.
