This month, we bring you Part Two: Growth
About the authorPeter Mitchell was educated, unhappily, at Eton and Trinity College Cambridge. He stood for parliament on gay rights issues during a central London election – a campaign described in The Peculiar History of Oliver Trent. After spending the twenty “best” years of his life drafting bills for backbenchers and fighting them through parliament, only to see them thwarted by the government, Peter took advantage of a small inheritance and went freelance. When the friend with whom he had shared a house for 18 years died suddenly, Peter decided to leave England and live with his Thai lover in Pattaya. He spends the Thai monsoon season in an isolated finca in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, southern Spain. His style is taut and sardonic – a radio rather than a television play, where the readers have to eke out the spare text with their own imaginations.
The
Children of OM
Part Two:Growth
14
Oliver thrived at Oxford. His maturity enabled him easily to outstrip his fellow freshmen and by the end of his first term he was already marked as a future president of the Oxford Union. He was an excellent swimmer and the aesthetic pleasure of watching him dive caused half of his contemporaries of either sex to swoon.
For them, alas, it was a case of the magnet and the silver churn. Oliver’s Japanese tutor was a visiting fellow from Tokyo University and within a month they were in bed together. The combination of a firm smooth body and a brilliant inquisitive mind was irresistible to Oliver. It was his first experience of love (if one excludes the episode to which he never referred). Oliver had been fond of his adoptive mother, but she was too dim for them ever to be really close. Sir Andrew he passively despised; he had recently been relegated to the backbenches and everyone knew that his political career was over, but he was too lazy or too arrogant to develop another one.
Yoshi’s tenure was originally only for one year, but he exerted his considerable charm on his colleagues at Christchurch and in Tokyo and succeeded in extending it for a further two. If Oliver obtained a first class degree there would be no trouble finding an opening for him to continue his studies in Japan. Oliver had been mistaken in thinking he would have complete control of what he called his grandfather’s trust fund when he became of age; in fact he enjoyed only the income until he was twenty-five. He had complained to his godfather, but Stephen was implacable.
“He was a very sensible old man, your grandfather. All you would want capital for now is to buy a flashy sports car and probably kill yourself. By twenty-five you should know what you want to do with your life.”
Oliver’s Mandarin tutor was the exact antithesis of Yoshi. He was a crusty old queen who had been made redundant by the Foreign Office and who resented being forced to eke out his pension. He had no gift for teaching and his dislike of Oliver (undoubtedly fueled by jealousy) was enthusiastically reciprocated. Oliver’s request to change his second language course to Thai was sympathetically received. To rub salt in the wounds, Oliver was taught by the Thai wife of another diplomat who, by contrast, had had a brilliant career, which he was now crowning as master of one of the smaller colleges. Khunying Siriporn, once the formal tuition was completed, delighted to enthrall Oliver with tales of a Siam where the farmer’s best friend was his buffalo and elephants still worked in the forests.
In the evening of the last day of May, Darunpan and Susan were watching television when the telephone rang.
A frail voice asked apologetically, “Mr Darunpan? I hope it’s not too late. I am phoning from Spain and I am not sure what the time is.”
“No problem mate. You must be Stephen if I am not mistaken. What can I do for you?”
“Yes. Well you remember writing to me about my godson, Oliver Marshall? You said that if I was going to tell him about Oliver Trent, I should do so after he graduated. He rang me yesterday to say he had obtained a first. Much better than me. I am so proud.”
“Good on him. I’ll send him a telegram,” Darunpan interjected.
“I still don’t know what to do. I was thinking of inviting him to Spain and I wondered if you …”
“No chance, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. I can’t afford the time or the money. More importantly, Susan is pregnant and the only trip she is going to make is back to Perth for the delivery. I’m certainly not leaving her here alone.”
“Oh dear.” Stephen was at a loss.
“I’ve a much better idea,” Darunpan continued. “You have time on your hands. I am sure Oliver told you his plans if he got a first. He and Yoshi can easily break their journey to Japan in Thailand. You are very welcome to stay with us as well. We have plenty of room. I suggest that you ring Oliver back and put the case to him. I’d love to see him again and to meet you and Yoshi. I have also got some other news for Oliver, which I should like to tell him personally.”
“Well, I don’t know, at my age ...” Stephen tailed off again.
“Don’t be a wimp. You are no older than Dusit was when he visited you. It’s take it or leave it. If you want my help it is readily available, but only here. Goodnight mate.”
Susan laughed. “That’s telling him. I’m glad you are practising being Australian – friendly but blunt.”
Darunpan sat down beside her again, put one arm around her shoulder and with his other hand rubbed her belly.
“I’ve just one priority now, darling; and its name isn’t Oliver.”
Yoshi had been unimpressed by Oliver’s parents and was relieved to learn that he had been adopted. He presumed that Stephen was cast of similar metal. Although Oliver had visited Stephen once during his time at Oxford, Yoshi had declined to accompany him. His doctoral thesis entailed a comparison of tensions between urban and rural communities in Japan and Britain during the previous two centuries. He devoted any free time to travelling to remote parts of the island and interviewing their oldest inhabitants.
He knew, however, that now was his last chance for a complete break and he indulged himself in satisfying a long-held dream, to float around the Aegean for a month and temporarily to erase the whole world of academia from his mind. Oliver seconded the proposal ardently. A week after their return they agreed to meet Stephen’s morning flight from Malaga and travel on together to Bangkok.
“I assume he can manage to board the plane at Malaga on his own?” Yoshi asked.
“Yes of course,” Oliver replied. “He used to be right on the ball the whole time, but his wife’s death affected him terribly. He ought to have a check-up for Alzheimer’s or whatever, but I don’t feel I can tell him that. Maybe Darunpan can give us some idea.”
“But do you have any idea what it is he wants to tell you that he can’t put in the post?” Yoshi persisted.
“Not really. It might have something to do with a friend of his called Oliver Trent, after whom I was apparently named. I think he died in a car accident in Thailand shortly before I was born. Darunpan met him when he was a child, but that’s all I know.
Stephen had the window seat with Oliver next to him and Yoshi by the aisle. After the meal had been cleared away, Stephen asked Yoshi to get his brief case from the overhead locker. He opened it and handed Oliver a file thick with A4 sheets of paper.
“You’ve got twelve hours with nothing to do, I suppose you might as well fill in some of the time by reading this,” he said, and promptly fell asleep.
Oliver glanced at the first page.
“I was right. It is about Oliver Trent. But I am damned if I am going to read it now if there is anything that is going to upset me. Here, you take it. It can’t matter to you and it might be amusing.”
The first chapters of Stephen’s monograph could not have had a more fascinated reader than Yoshi. They described a world long forgotten even by most living Britons. Although there was an element of mystery about Oliver Trent, there was nothing to explain either why Stephen had kept the story to himself for so long or why he had decided that it must be told to Oliver now. It was only when Oliver Trent emigrated to Pattaya that Yoshi began to become preoccupied. When he finally turned the last page of the epilogue he was shaking. He gazed down at Oliver, who was sleeping peacefully.
“Why? Why? Why?” Yoshi kept on repeating to himself. “What good can telling Oliver do? He already has the burden of a mysterious genetic defect.” Oliver had long ago confided in Yoshi all the particulars and consequences of his adventure in Pattaya.
Then the social scientist took over from the lover. If the story was true, Yoshi realised that Stephen also had the burden of deciding whether it should die with him. Glancing at the old man snoring with his mouth open, Yoshi could not conceive that he could have made it up.
15
They took a taxi along the elevated motorway and arrived at Darunpan’s house in less than half an hour. Stephen could not believe it; nor could he recognise any of the surroundings. “It used to take at least four hours when I was here before,” he gasped. Oliver gently reminded him that the new airport was much closer to Pattaya. “Still,” he continued, to mollify Stephen, “it took an hour when I was here before; they must have added another section.”
Darunpan slapped Oliver on the shoulder.
“How’s Priam keeping? Not exactly fifty-fifty, but nobody’s perfect. They weren’t all Hecuba’s were they?”
“Don’t you start. I’ve had quite enough from Yoshi.”
Darunpan shook hands with Stephen and Yoshi, and then all three kissed Susan. Darunpan gazed at Yoshi.
“So you are the tutor who got Oliver his degree. Good on you.”
Darunpan felt embarrassed because Yoshi seemed younger than Oliver, his trim oriental figure dwarfed by Oliver’s muscular body. He bit his tongue and turned back to Oliver.
“Say, you must have been doing a bit of swimming.”
“Yeah. Did I tell you I got my Blue and we thrashed Cambridge?” Oliver grinned.
Susan took Stephen to his room, where the old man said he would rest a while before joining the others. While Oliver was wandering around the garden to see if anything had changed, Yoshi whispered to Darunpan that he would like a quiet word with him. They slipped back into the house and Yoshi produced Stephen’s folder. Darunpan knew immediately what it was.
“Oliver hasn’t seen it yet. It’s terrifying. Or is the man quite mad? I can understand why he did not want to show it to Oliver on his own.”
Darunpan agreed to read it that night and hid it under some papers. Oliver called through the door.
“What are you two whispering about? Are the jackfruits ripe? Some people say they are just as tasty as durians, but without the smell.”
“Sure. I’ll cut one.”
Glad of the excuse, Darunpan fetched an axe and climbed onto the wall and up the tree.
“Keep your distance,” he yelled, as he chopped at a stalk.
The fruit was wedged in the angle of a branch and he had to use the axe handle to lever it out so that it crashed down at the base of the neighbouring banana tree.
“I’ve never seen anything so huge,” Yoshi gasped, as he tried to lift it.
“Don’t break your back. I’ll cut it up here but I must get a knife and some oil. Otherwise the knife will just stick fast.”
Both Yoshi and Oliver declared the fruit delicious.
“Y’know it’s jogged my memory. A damn sight heavier than your rugger ball, eh Oliver?”
Both Oliver and Yoshi were mystified.
“My what?” and “I didn’t know you played rugger!” they said simultaneously.
“That girl you told me about. Come on in, I’ve something to show you. You read Thai fluently now I assume?”
Darunpan handed Oliver the article in Thai Rath with Sunny’s poignant appeal.
“I’d forgotten all about her,” Oliver said guiltily.
“Well she clearly hasn’t forgotten about you. Do you want to get in touch with her? I obviously have kept quiet until I saw you.”
“Sure, I suppose so. She looks cute. It can’t do any harm. Let me sleep on it.”
With Susan snuggling at his side, Darunpan only skimmed the first two parts of Stephen’s story of Oliver Trent, which seemed quaint and old-fashioned. He started to concentrate when Oliver reached Pattaya and Darunpan instantly recognised the portraits of Uncle Rak and his cousin Gop, although the first encounter was a few years before Darunpan had been born. He did not remember the Tam Bun Bahn, the blessing of the house, but its description and the death of his father a few months later must have been based on first hand evidence. He smiled at the accounts of his own first forays in the swimming pool and the conviction of Oliver that little Fak would soon consign his nickname to history. There was nothing that conflicted in the slightest degree with his memories, until the accident, which Fak had been told had killed both Rak and Oliver Trent.
It was while the men were drinking coffee after breakfast and Susan was busying herself in the kitchen that Darunpan grasped the nettle.
“You know, Oliver, that Stephen wants to tell you the full story about Oliver Trent, the friend after whom you were named; he arranged this trip because he felt that both of you might need support. I am very glad that you had the sense to pass the file straight to Yoshi, as a long distance flight was quite the wrong time and place to read it. Both Yoshi and I have looked at it and we think that you should do so while we are all together.”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders and lay down on a sofa with his head on Yoshi’s lap and his feet stretched over the arm. Yoshi handed him the sheets one by one. Oliver was a fast reader and every five seconds a page joined its predecessors on the floor. Fifteen minutes later the final page was crumpled in Oliver’s fist.
“So what the fuck are you trying to tell me?” he rounded on Stephen.
“Are you saying that Oliver Trent started to grow again and was renamed Oliver Marshall? And where did he come from? Old men don’t appear out of nowhere!”
Stephen inevitably had begun to cry.
“I only met Oliver Trent a few years later. The authorities did all they could. But I think they were looking for the wrong person. They were looking for an old man who had stopped cashing his pension. They should have been looking for a middle-aged man who had stopped paying his contributions.”
Both Darunpan and Yoshi joined Oliver in staring at Stephen. Darunpan was the first to speak.
“You never mentioned this to Dusit! Why not?”
“It is only guesswork. Dusit clearly thought I was engaging in some senile fantasy anyway.”
“So your theory is that there was a person pre Oliver Trent who was subject to inconsistent ageing, the mirror image of Oliver Trent’s rejuvenation? I have to say that the one theory is no more crazy than the other.”
“This is just getting worse!” Oliver shouted. “You are describing me as some sort of perpetual motion fairground ride. I tell you, Yoshi, when I get old I want you to kill me and cremate me and put an end to this lunacy.”
Oliver was sitting up now and Yoshi leaned over to him and murmured something in Japanese in his ear. Whatever it was, it calmed Oliver down a little.
“Perhaps I may offer a medical view,” Darunpan said quietly.
“We are working on the assumption that it is the trisomy which is the cause of this aberration. Since Oliver is genetically identical to his namesake, Trent must have had the same defect. In my opinion it is practically certain that his predecessor’s was the original mutation. The whole world has been seeking further examples for three years now without success, apart from our cohort here in Thailand. I am hopeful that the ‘proto-Trent’ had no offspring. We know Trent did not. If it had not been for the criminal activities of Mr Wright, I consider it likely that Oliver would never had reproduced.” Darunpan smiled at Yoshi.
“As Oliver has pointed out, he does not have the gift of immortality. Any disease or accident could finish him off. It is only old age of which he cannot die, because some gene then appears to put the ageing process into reverse. In the normal course of events this trisomy would have never have been discovered and would sooner or later have been eliminated from the human gene pool. Now, however, we have about fifty new samples, both male and female, some of whom are bound to reproduce.”
“Unless they are sterilised,” Yoshi interjected.
“Precisely. Simple medically, but an ethical and social minefield.
“If you will bear with me I should like to analyse the evidence we have of this ageing or rejuvenating process. Your account, Stephen, is lamentably lacking in dates. It appears that twelve years passed between Trent’s discovery and his first visit to Spain where you surmise he passed himself off as fifty-five. If he was eighty, or had become eighty, at the time of the crash this gives us a twenty-five year gap: that is to say the rate of rejuvenation is double the normal passage of time. This seems improbable from your observations during the time that you were living with him in London. I think one can take five years away at one end and add them at the other, reducing the gap to fifteen years, an increase of only twenty-five percent.
“Turning to you, Oliver, you are aged twenty-one, but look to me about twenty-five, ie, twenty percent older. Your children are all healthy three-year-olds. If some are mature for their age, no one except their doctors has noticed the fact, and then only because they were on the alert for it. The point I am making is that the effect of the mutation has not to date had any severe impact on the lives of those living with it. I do not think there is any medical necessity or any moral justification for intervention.
“You will obviously be asking yourselves about the three occasions when Trent shed years overnight. I think that Stephen’s hypothesis is correct so far as it goes. The first occurred after the death of Patrick, his closest friend. The second took place after the death of his lover, Rak, in an accident. Although exaggerated in his case, apparent ageing after a tragic event is commonplace.
“We have no information as to what may have caused the final transformation, except that Trent seems to have known that something was about to happen. My guess is that he knew he would be unable to return to school after the summer holidays because his loss of age would be too apparent. He might also have feared, or noticed, some deterioration in his mental faculties.
“My conclusion is that Oliver and his children should lead perfectly normal lives. One cannot and should not anticipate life’s misfortunes since brooding on the possibility may only bring to pass the very event one seeks to avoid.
“That is quite a long enough sermon. As the rain has stopped I suggest we drive down to the beach for a swim.”
16
Thank you for putting things in perspective.” Oliver and Darunpan were relaxing after their swim, while Yoshi was enduring a massage and Susan and Stephen were debating what parts of a som tam were edible.
“Compared to any other person with a genetic defect I am extraordinarily lucky,” Oliver continued. “It’s just the thought that I am essentially the same person as Oliver Trent that gives me the creeps. I don’t think I like him very much. Until now Stephen has told me next to nothing. In fact for the last five years he has hardly communicated at all. He was so loving and lively when I was a child; but he began to become distant even before Aunt Julia died.”
Darunpan thought for a moment.
“I suspect that has something to do with the fact that you had reached the age that he was when he first met Oliver Trent, who, in his turn, was not that much older than Stephen is now. I am sure he never had any ill intentions towards you, but he must be very conscious that you had been lovers then. I am sure that seeing you and Yoshi together will have eased his mind in some way. He has borne your secret alone for twenty years; now he can hand over responsibility for you to someone much more capable of handling it.”
“Talking of responsibility, what should I do about Sunny? Of course I want to see her, but I don’t want to be disruptive. After all I am only here for a couple of weeks. What do you suggest?”
“I shall ring the headmaster; but I expect he will be as delighted as Sunny that you have reappeared. If you think of Sunny’s life to date, you can be sure that she is a tough cookie who can handle most situations.”
“Then what do you think I should give her?” Oliver asked.
“Well it is up to you. I think the first gift should be largely symbolic, say a one baht gold chain. But I have another idea. I think you should enable Sunny to share her good fortune with her friends. One quite common way of making merit is to provide a special meal for a poor school. It would cost you no more than two dollars a head. I am not sure exactly how many pupils there are, but if you can afford about five hundred dollars it would be money very well spent.”
“Take it as done,” Oliver responded enthusiastically and leaped up from his deckchair. “Race you to the buoys and back. You take the near one and I’ll take the far one.”
Oliver ran into the sea, followed rather more sedately by Darunpan.
Stephen elected to stay at home with Susan. The two of them had established an immediate empathy. On Susan’s part she was delighted to have such an erudite companion. Devoted as she was to her husband and to her work, she found Pattaya a cultural desert and the opportunity to visit Bangkok only arose occasionally. As for Stephen, Susan was the first woman with whom he had communicated other than superficially since Julia’s death. His age and Susan’s condition enabled them to confide in each other without restraint.
It was, therefore, a party of only three that set off at dawn in Darunpan’s car back along the motorway past the airport and then cut north on less adequate roads towards Bang Po-in, and Ayuthaya. At the other former capital, Sukothai, they headed northwest into the countryside. Oliver had opted to sit in the back with his thoughts, while Darunpan gave Yoshi a brief history of the towns they passed.
It was noon before they arrived at the school and all the pupils were lined up along the road to greet them. At the school gates stood a nervous Sunny flanked by the headmaster and Ong. The three of them could not avoid a look of shared consternation when Darunpan and Yoshi emerged first from the car; but when Oliver succeeded in extricating his bulk from the back seat there was an audible gasp of relief and astonishment.
“He must be a film star!” was the whisper that ran along the serried ranks of children.
Indeed, in that setting Oliver seemed more than ever a Gulliver in Lilliput. He raised his hands to wai the headmaster and Ong and then waved to all the children before kneeling down to embrace Sunny.
“I would not want to have to catch you now that you have grown so much,” he whispered to her in Thai, before rising to his feet. Sunny had been coached to deliver a short sentence of welcome in English, but it took immediate flight and she blurted out in Thai,
“Oh I am so happy to see you, so happy,” and burst into tears.
Ong applied a handkerchief and the headmaster gave a signal for the children to collect their food trays and seat themselves at the tables. Once order had been restored he asked Oliver to say a few words. Seeing the eagerness in the little faces he was perhaps slightly too brief.
“I am very happy to meet you all and I hope you enjoy your meal.”
Sunny ate with her friends while Oliver and Darunpan chatted with Ong and the headmaster. Sunny was one of the brightest pupils and definitely ought to have university in her sights, but her path after she left the school would be a rocky one. For the moment Oliver promised to send her a small monthly allowance; Ong would ensure that Sunny wrote Oliver a letter every month. After the meal was over, Oliver walked with Sunny to the edge of the football field and gave her the gold chain. He also promised to visit her once each year, without having previously consulted with Yoshi.
“No problem,” Yoshi said when Oliver told him. “The trip from Tokyo is nothing. People fly to Thailand just for a weekend’s golf. The whole package costs less than a green fee in Japan!”
The three friends decided to break their return journey in Sukothai and spent the next morning walking around the ruins of the ancient town, where the huge stupas or chedis, set among the lakes, were even more impressive than those at Ayuthaya.
Back in Pattaya they found that they had not been missed at all. Stephen’s flight home was in a couple of days time. Although Oliver and Yoshi had intended to travel around Thailand, the weather was not in their favour and the nearer he felt to home the more itchy Yoshi’s feet became. Oliver was more than happy to reward his lover’s unselfishness and had no trouble in changing their flights.
It was rather a sad farewell at the gate of Darunpan’s house. None of them knew when they would meet again. Malaga, Tokyo and Perth formed a huge triangle and they all knew that the promises they made were unlikely to be kept. They could, of course, see and hear each other through cyberspace, but not touch or smell. Yoshi, naturally, was the least upset.
“Cheer up, Oliver, and look forward to our new life in Japan,” he admonished his lover in his own tongue as the taxi drove away.
17
There was no problem until the children in Korat started to attend school. Up to then no one (apart from their doctors) had noticed the singular likeness between a number of luuk krung children. On the first morning at Mongkut nursery school, where the new pupils were being enrolled by their mothers, three women stared at each other and their sons in amazement. Apart from their clothing they were unable to tell the children apart. The same thought occurred to all three and within minutes they had established that they all had received treatment at the same fertility clinic at about the same time. Each was also receiving a small allowance from a private charity. All were also attending the same paediatric clinic, but their appointments were always on different days of the week.
The three may have been poorly educated, but they were not stupid. If there were three boys at this school there must be others elsewhere. There might also be a number of girls in Mongkut as well. They decided to meet that evening and confront the doctor at the clinic.
Their visit was expected and they were ushered into a conference room, where five other women were already seated cuddling their daughters in their arms. All five little girls appeared identical. Dr Rangsit handed around glasses of water and then sat down at the head of the table.
“Today you have had, perhaps, the surprise of your lives. You have also, I believe, shared your experiences and know that you were each exploited by the same criminal doctor, who promised you a special child. You were all told that the man had been arrested and deported to the United States soon after the birth of your children. He will remain in prison for a very long time.
“You may wonder why you were not told of the existence of other mothers in the same position as you, and may consider me to blame. The decision was made at a very high level, but I am in complete agreement with it. The result is that you and your children have enjoyed five normal years without all the pressure that public knowledge of your predicament would have entailed, and which you will now have to face. Once you knew each other the secret could not have been kept for long.
“I can now tell you that you are part of a group of one hundred mothers, of whom seventy live in Korat. I have agreed with my colleagues in this province that we should shortly arrange a conference where you can all meet each other.
“I want to assure you now that all your children are perfectly healthy, but there are some further implications which I wish to discuss with you each individually at your next regular visit.”
The truth was that Dr Rangsit had not yet been authorised to disclose the fact that roughly half the children had inherited Oliver’s trisomy. If he had had his way he would have informed his patients months before. Nobody seemed prepared to make a decision. Since the prime minister had been involved five years before, the papers kept being shuffled between the health ministry and the PM’s office without them ever actually reaching his desk. The only person with the auctoritas to intervene was Professor Witayagorn, but he had been retired for three years and was unwilling to become involved again. The result, Dr Rangsit knew, would be chaos as the truth leaked out to the press in dribs and drabs.
It was the older children at the school who were the first to react.
“Hey are you twins? Why do you have different mothers? Do you have a father?”
The poor mites were, of course, totally bewildered and the teachers were forced to intervene. Gossip spread and within three days journalists and photographers were setting up positions outside the school gates. Once pictures appeared in the press, the other children in Korat were identified and, before long, those in Bangkok and Pattaya. Only the three children isolated in far-flung corners of the kingdom remained temporarily undiscovered.
Theories abounded. Drawing on alien mythologies some declared them to be children of a god, others of a devil. A Korat policeman earned himself some extra cash by leaking the fact that they all did have the same father, who was called Marshall. It so happens that when transliterated into Thai the word sounds exactly the same as Martian. There were quite enough Thais with an acquaintance of sci-fi movies to create a fantasy in which an extra-terrestrial had descended from the skies and impregnated a hundred women in a single night. The story exploded and at last landed on the prime minister’s desk.
“Who is responsible for this shambles?” The prime minister glared around the room until his gaze became fixed on the minister of health.
“I sent the papers to your office two or three months ago, prime minister. Since you had been involved in the case before, I thought they needed your imprimatur.”
The prime minister turned to the cabinet secretary.
“Your instructions are explicit prime minister. We are sent far more papers than you can possibly read. Unless there are financial implications of over one billion baht or there is a conflict between two or more ministries, you have directed us to return the files for ministerial decision. This case falls one hundred percent within the authority of the ministry of health.”
The prime minister sighed. Most of his colleagues were too nervous to bother him, but also too terrified to take a decision on their own. He had been too powerful for too long.
Since the recent death of the revered, adored and greatly mourned King Bhumiphol the Great, there was no person or institution who dared challenge the prime minister’s authority. As a result he knew that large areas of the administration had almost ground to a halt.
“So how are we going to handle it? The media have gone mad and they do not even know yet about the trisomy. You do not know what a trisomy is? You are all university graduates. What do you expect the public to think?”
The PM turned back to the minister of health.
“At least I assume you understand, but I won’t ask you to attempt an explanation. What has happened to that professor who persuaded me to set up a trust fund? What was his name?”
The cabinet secretary replied quietly.
“Dusit Witayagorn, prime minister. He retired three years ago.”
“Then he had better come out of retirement forthwith. I intend to go on national television with him. If I do it alone half the population will assume I am covering something up.”
“There is something else you should know, prime minister. We have been given advance information that he has been awarded a share of this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine. The announcement will be made next week.”
“Splendid, splendid. I assume it was his discovery of the trisomy that led to the award? I am sure we can spin this to our advantage. Will this be Thailand’s first Nobel Prize? Check it out. I feel sure anyway that it will be the first for work actually undertaken in Thailand rather than in California.”
The prime minister’s prediction was correct. The Thai press about-turned and the children shared in Dusit’s reflected glory. A cynic observed that it was like laboratory mice sharing a Nobel Prize.
There was only one unfortunate outcome. At the end of the cabinet meeting, the prime minister thought out loud; a dangerous habit for an autocrat, as Henry II of England had discovered eight hundred years before.
“Don’t most children take their father’s name?” he mused. “Now they all will know they have the same father and know who he is, perhaps they should change their surnames.”
In any normal administration this idiotic idea would have been buried and the PM would have forgotten all about it. Civil servants tore their hair out trying to think of something appropriate. Anything that sounded like Martian was clearly out of the question. Eventually they compromised on Matcha, a Pali word, meaning fish. Instructions were sent out to local authorities to alter the registrations, but without any immediate practical effect on any mother or child.
18
Sunny had fulfilled all Ong’s hopes and was now, with Oliver’s financial help, a fresher at Bangkok’s Thammasat University studying sociology. On his last visit Oliver had told her the background of his children, but without delving into the ancient history of Oliver Trent. He explained that some of his children, like himself, might age slightly faster than normal; but otherwise they had no problems. Sunny was eager to meet them and see how much they resembled her guardian angel.
Sunny was as deeply in love with Oliver as ever, but the love caused her no pain, just a sense of profound privilege. None of her male contemporaries made the slightest impression on her and she declared herself to be a political lesbian, although she never felt the slightest love, let alone lust, for a woman, until she met Cassandra.
The perpetual prime minister, who had been set to rival Sir Robert Walpole’s tenure of office in eighteenth century Britain, had finally been dislodged by a coup within his own party. He had retired immediately to his extensive estate in Texas. He also possessed a penthouse in Manhattan; indeed it was believed that one of his companies owned the entire block. Politics had returned to normal, as ministers and civil servants no longer lived in fear of imminent execution.
Oliver’s children were nearing their twelfth birthday, that is to say the end of their first cycle of life. The minister of health had decided to hold a grand birthday party for them, where they could all meet each other for the first time. Oliver, naturally, was invited to attend; so was Darunpan, who demurred on the grounds of cost. In the meantime, both Dusit and Stephen had died; and the latter had left his entire estate to Oliver.
After a little persuading, Darunpan and Susan agreed to attend at Oliver’s expense and bring their son and daughter, now aged eight and seven, to pay their first visit to their father’s homeland. Yoshi accompanied Oliver, and Sunny was given a few days leave to join her guardian. Oliver had booked two suites at the Oriental Hotel. He explained that since he was now in full possession of two fortunes, and as Darunpan insisted on calling him Priam, he was going to spend at least a week living like a king.
The celebration took place at the Queen Sirikhit National Convention Centre. From a balcony Oliver and his party looked down on the children as they registered and received their doggy bag of goodies. One thing was conspicuous. Half of Oliver’s progeny were still children, but the other half were already boisterous adolescents.
As expected, the children automatically divided themselves into two groups by sex. It soon became clear that in each group there was a dominant member. Among the boys, the leader was a good hand taller even than his equals.
“He could be you when you turned up on my doorstep.” Darunpan said softly, “I am going to call him Hector.”
The leader among the girls did not dominate on account of her height but through her personality, which was obvious even though they were too far away to hear what she was saying. Even at this distance Sunny was transfixed.
“I want that woman,” she said to herself. “Even if she is only twelve now, I can wait.”
Meanwhile Darunpan whispered to Oliver, “If she is one of Priam’s daughters she must be Cassandra.”
Everyone had to endure the minister’s opening remarks, followed by the organiser giving the orders of the day. Then it was Oliver’s turn. Oddly he felt far less self-conscious speaking in Thai and it may well be that his short speech sounded better in that language than it reads in translation.
“My sons and daughters, you all now know that I am your biological father. You can also see that I am not a Martian. I was little older than you are now, at the time when I was abused by the man who subsequently abused your mothers. There was no way that I could act as a parent to any one of you, let alone all of you. I am now, however, immensely grateful to have the opportunity to meet you and get to know you.
“It is time to forget the past and throw yourselves into the future wholeheartedly. Some of you have inherited from me a gene that causes you to grow older slightly faster than normal. I am now just thirty years old, but I may look a few years older. My only advice to my children who take after me is to encourage you not to waste a moment of your lives. No one knows his or her fate. Love and take care of your mothers who have raised you and love and care for each other. I shall be here when you need me. Your father blesses you all.”
The children were split into four groups, by sex and by trisomy. Each group was assigned a doctor of their sex, less to moderate than to answer questions. Oliver and Darunpan sat in on Hector’s group, and Sunny joined Cassandra’s. Yoshi went with Susan and her children to walk in the gardens.
Some of the issues were common to all groups. In general the girls were more resentful of their enforced name change than the boys, which they had first encountered on enrolling in elementary school. Perhaps the girls identified more with their mothers, while the boys idealised their unknown father. Perhaps the choice of Matcha was only slightly less unfortunate than Martian; English (or in this case mock-Spanish) jargon was rife in Thailand and many of the older boys pronounced their surname “macho”.
After lunch, everyone returned to the main assembly hall. Each group had been asked to choose a rapporteur, but only two of the groups found anyone willing to undertake the role. A coin was tossed and Cassandra was sent in to speak first.
“The situation we are in is due entirely to the tyranny that men have exercised over women in this country, and in particular rich men over poor women. None of us blame Oliver for our predicament, let alone our poor mothers; but we do indict the whole male apparatus of the society in which we were born and in which we live. How could that criminal have operated without the acquiescence of the police? We were bred to become prostitutes; and who can deny that hundreds of young girls are still today smuggled into Thailand for this purpose under the noses of the authorities?
“I don’t know what you were bred for,” she waved her hand in the general direction of Hector. “Some of you say to become pop stars. This would be an uncertain source of profit. I am sure that it was only technical difficulties that prevented Mr Wright from producing only women.”
“Right on girl,” Sunny said under her breath. “Sock it to them!”
Cassandra had paused and Hector saw his opportunity.
“My sister is very sure of her worth. I am willing to take up her challenge. I suggest we both go out this evening on the streets of Bangkok and see how much each of us can earn.”
Loud cheers from the boys and boos from the girls.
“They make a good pair,’ Darunpan laughed, digging Oliver in the ribs. “I am glad I am not their parent.”
“A typical macho male,” Cassandra retorted. “Not only do you have no respect for women, you have no respect for yourself. Sisters, you must seek not just economic emancipation, but liberation from the male values that have left Thailand in the gutter. Follow me to freedom!”
Sunny stood up and led the applause, to the astonishment of her new friends.
“A cross between Cassandra and Joan of Arc. What a dangerous combination! They both came to nasty ends as I recall.” Darunpan was still jesting, but Oliver’s brow was furrowed by concern and he only managed a weak grin.
“Let’s hear what Hector has to say.”
“Brothers and sisters. You heard the advice that our father gave us, that we need to travel faster than our compatriots. I agree, but would put it another way. We are travelling normally, but the rest of the world is dragging its feet and seeking to hold us back. I shall give you a personal example. In my new school I refused to attend the class I was allocated and staged a sit-in in a senior form. Eventually the headmaster relented and in no time I was top of the class. I did the same the following two terms. I have no doubt I would be able to pass the university entrance exams next year. Then what am I expected to do? Twiddle my thumbs for five years? As a group we must demand that the rules are changed so that exceptions can be made.
“Some people may extend their sympathy towards our problem. But our only problem is their sympathy! We have been given an opportunity to be leaders in society and it is our duty to wear that mantle. In this I agree with our sister. Where I disagree is that the focus of her anger is too narrow. Machismo and subservient respect for riches, however dishonestly obtained, are dragons to be slain. But so are complacency and lack of ambition. Where do our contemporaries seek riches? From hard work? From developing new ideas? Or from gambling and corruption? You know the answer.
“Brothers and sisters! We must not fight each other but make common cause to demolish common enemies. A Greek once said ‘Who can defeat an army of lovers?’ I say to you ‘Who can defeat the united strength of the children of OM?’”
The applause was even greater than before. Oliver was choking with emotion and tears streamed down his face. Yoshi had only understood a few words, but the purport of the speech was unmistakable. Oliver hugged him and asked in Japanese,
“Have I raised monsters or heroes?”
“Only time will tell, my love.”
19
Oliver invited Hector and Cassandra to dine with Sunny
and himself in his private suite at the Oriental. Yoshi joined Darunpan
and his family on a tour of the city lights. Hector’s nickname proved
to be Din, while Cassandra’s was Fah. Each was more appropriate to the
other since the former means “earth” and the latter “sky”. While Oliver
could see Din blazing a trail through the heavens, Fah’s destiny seemed
more to be to gather all the creatures of the world into her embrace.
Sunny was determined to be the first. The mesmeric quality of Fah’s
maternal force deprived Sunny of speech. Paedophilia? Of the two, Sunny
was the child. Fah was not merely her equal; she was the superior of
any woman who could possibly exist. Oliver was disquieted by Fah, but he had sufficient experience of teaching brilliant young women not to be put off his stride. He told Din and Fah the strange manner of his first encounter with Sunny and how they had rediscovered each other years later. Sunny had agreed to act in loco parentis to his children if any unforeseen circumstances arose. To Sunny’s delight Fah appeared more agreeable than Din to this arrangement.
Oliver then asked them both what their ambitions were. Din hardly paused for thought. As soon as possible he wanted to go to university in an English speaking country to study law and international relations. Then, after attending Harvard Business School, he would find an opportunity to make a quick, but substantial, fortune. Subsequently he would decide whether to continue in business, return to academia or perhaps enter politics. Eventually he might even come back to Thailand if he thought his talents would be sufficiently appreciated and rewarded there.
Sunny was hardly listening and Oliver was astounded by such clarity of purpose, not to say arrogance, in one so young. Fah, predictably, responded with scorn.
“A typical, self-centred, male – I should rather say phallic – approach to life. The function of everyone else is to serve you and enrich you. No doubt at the end of your stellar career you will devote a little time and money pontificating on the world’s problems, blissfully unaware that it is people like you who have created them. As for myself, my future lies here in Thailand. I shall seek whatever skills I need the better to serve my fellow women – law, medicine or whatever.”
Instinctively Sunny reached out and placed her hand on Fah’s. Fah grasped it warmly and leant over to kiss her, Sunny almost fainted. Oliver was emollient.
“I admire you for your decision, Fah; but I also admire Din. I really think it is a little too soon to demonise him. My sole desire is to enable you to follow the paths you choose. I have been pondering an idea, which I now feel will not appeal to you, Fah. I am not sure about Din.
“I have sufficient funds to pay for two pupils to attend an international school in Thailand. It may seem unfair not to treat all my children the same, but in this case I believe the best is the enemy of the good. You are without question the two leaders of the pack and should therefore be given first refusal. Fah?”
“You have guessed right. I have no desire to be turned into some ersatz farang. I stay with my sisters.”
Din’s reaction was diametrically opposite.
“That would be stupendous! You can’t believe how bored I am at school. If you can afford two places, I have a brother who is quite as clever as me, far more so when it comes to computers; but he has a slight stammer, which discourages him from putting himself forward. I am sure that the environment of an international school would do wonders for his self-confidence.”
“Well that seems to be settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Your mothers have agreed that you can stay overnight, so it just remains to settle the sleeping arrangements. The two suites are side by side and I think I can hear youthful voices in the passage. Each suite has two bedrooms, one double, and one twin. Yoshi will be joining me here and perhaps Sunny and Fah could share the twin room. Darunpan has agreed that Din can share the twin room next door with his son, since there is plenty of space in the matrimonial bed for their daughter.”
Sunny would have preferred to be sharing a double bed with Fah, but accepted second best with joy.
Fah’s mother had entertained a succession of men in her small hovel, for all of whom Fah exhibited overt contempt. Fah’s attitude towards them was, to no small extent, the reason why her mother never formed a permanent relationship. On the rare occasion when a man attempted to be friendly he retreated with a searing pain in his loins. From time to time a male visit resulted in another sibling for Fah to care for; her sisters she tended with compassion, her brothers with disdain.
Fah had no inhibitions about her body. The thought of sex with a species that she despised revolted her; and she never thought of a relationship with another woman, however intimate, as sex. Sex was an ugly word to denote domination by a man, which invariably produced undesirable consequences. Even to envision the word in the context of love between sisters was abhorrent. Sunny was dumbfounded when Fah simply stepped out of her clothes and walked naked to the bathroom.
“Coming for a shower?”
Sunny followed.
Fah gave no sign that anything was out of the ordinary, but Sunny was wracked by orgasm after orgasm. Exhausted, she stumbled out of the bathroom first, dried herself and collapsed into bed. When Fah emerged, she simply ignored the other bed, snuggled up beside Sunny and fell asleep immediately. Oh the innocence of youth!
In the adjacent suite Darunpan’s little Peter exhibited much more surface excitement at sleeping in the same room with a big brother, but there the comparison ends. Din kissed Peter and told him to calm down and go to sleep. Din then lay revelling in thoughts of leaving his slum school and mixing with the scions of famous Thais and rich foreigners. Then his reveries wafted him to Oxford in the footsteps of his father before sleep engulfed him somewhere in mid-Atlantic.
In the morning, Oliver took Din and Fah in a hotel limousine to the coach station to catch a bus to Korat. On his return, he and Yoshi, Darunpan, Susan and their two children took the morning cruise up the River of Kings to Bang Po-in and Ayuthaya. Did he recall that he was following in the footsteps of Oliver Trent on the latter’s first visit to Thailand – was it forty or fifty years ago?
20
The half brother whom Din had chosen to accompany him to the Salop International College, the offshoot of an English public school, was called Nok. Although no one could doubt their consanguinity, they no longer looked identical twins. In his unconscious quest for leadership, Din had thrown himself into an array of physical activities and excelled as much on the sports field as in the classroom. Although he was only slightly taller than Nok, he was a good ten kilos heavier and was invincible among his contemporaries in the Thai kickboxing ring.
Nok, on the other hand, sought his future on the web. As Din had told Oliver, he had a slight speech impediment that caused him to be extremely diffident in public. His mother was a weak and lonely woman, who preferred the presence of an abusive partner to living on her own. Nok had shared the abuse, which was mostly drunken violence; but, as Nok grew older, it became increasingly sexual and ended in rape. Nok confided in Din, who told the headmaster. The abuser was imprisoned and Nok’s mother never forgave him.
The British Council had placed on its website a freely accessible interactive audio-visual English language course, targeted deliberately at poorly educated but bright students who could not afford extra tuition. Nok devoted at least an hour each day to the course and he discovered, to his surprise and delight, that when he conversed with his tutor in English, his stammer disappeared. This occasioned a notable increase in his general confidence, which was further enhanced when Din asked him to help him with his English, which did not yet meet the standards demanded by Salop College.
The college prepared its pupils for the International Baccalaureate. This broader course of studies for sixth form students had gained increasing worldwide acceptance in opposition to more traditional single or dual subjects. This suited Din admirably since he had no love of knowledge for its own sake, but solely as an instrument for the attainment of influence and power. It was soon apparent, however, that Nok’s mathematical abilities were exceptional and could not be adequately nourished at Salop.
Nevertheless, Oliver was implacable. When he was at Oxford, he had known several brilliant mathematicians who were emotionally immature and understood nothing that could not be expressed in numbers and signs. They were easy prey for the bloodsucking fundamentalists of whatever creed and their careers were often cut short by acute bouts of mental illness. Oliver was determined that Nok would reach university with a deep and balanced understanding of the world. As a compromise, Oliver arranged extra weekend tuition for Nok with a research fellow at Thammasat.
Oliver also was of a mind that the two young men should be separated in order to avoid going through their time at university with the label of the “terrible Thai twins” or something worse. Din had set his sights on reading law at Oxford, but Oliver’s enquiries at his old college proved that this was a non-starter. The suggestion was politely made that Din should seek to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at one of the more recent foundations.
On the other hand, there was little doubt that Nok would win a scholarship wherever he pleased. Oliver persuaded him that if Trinity College Cambridge was the right place for Sir Isaac Newton and Bertrand Russell, to mention just two luminaries, it was the right place for him.
While her two brothers liked the world they saw and were striking their individual paths to the top, Fah’s ambition was even greater. She had no doubt that she could become a successful woman in a man’s world; but it was a world she despised. The constitution provided paper equality, but the enforcement was in the hands of men. The vast majority of women in Thailand were less well educated than their brothers, and this perpetuated the imbalance of power. A woman might occasionally gain power, but they seldom used it to benefit their sex. Fah had read a condensed biography in Thai of England’s “Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher, and had concluded that rather than being a hero she had been a traitor. Revolution could only be achieved through solidarity.
After her dramatic confrontation with Din, Fah began to establish a network, first with the “big sisters” (who were maturing faster) and then with the “little sisters”. Without exception they all fell under Fah’s spell and were thrilled to become part of a large and natural clan and enjoy the confidence with which it imbued them. There was only one minor problem. Many of the little sisters had formed close relationships with their little brothers and wanted them to be included. Fah reluctantly agreed that they could be auxiliary members of the tribe, but not share all its confidences. Perhaps in the future they could be used as a fifth column.
The fact that they had been bred to be prostitutes had become an obsession with Fah. She knew instinctively that others would be taking their place and this induced a growing sense of responsibility and guilt. It was part of the folklore that illegal prison brothels still existed, despite government assurances that they had all been eradicated. The first task that Fah gave her sisters in Korat was to discover if any were still operating in the town. They were to spy on their male neighbours and seek to establish unusual patterns of behaviour. Fah asked them to pay special attention to an abnormal number of journeys to a particular part of the city or its environs. Unknown to her, the tactic was very similar to that which had been used to track down the whereabouts of the infamous Mr Wright.
For security, Fah gave strict instructions that the girls were never to follow men off the beaten track and that if they did any sleuthing they should always be in a group of at least four; a single girl would arouse greater suspicion than a crowd. For several weeks the data was confused, but little by little there emerged a pattern of night time visits to a slum quarter of the town, which had no obvious attractions since the drug dealers had been exterminated by the police over a decade before.
Fah took six of her big sisters on a daytime reconnaissance. There were the usual flea market, noodle stalls and barbershops. Rows of breeze block houses alternated with the still ubiquitous corrugated iron shacks. More of the babble that filled their ears was Khmer rather than the Esan dialect. Without doubt it was the poorest suburb of Korat and Fah doubted whether the police or city officials paid it much attention.
“Hey girls, any of you want a real man?”
What surprised Fah was not the insult, but the southern accent. The guy was about nineteen, well dressed with a short beard and dark glasses. He seemed quite out of place in his surroundings. Fah decided to humour him.
“I don’t suppose you could handle any of us. Let’s have a better look at you.”
Fah marched brazenly forward and whipped off his glasses.
“Hey you bitch, give me those back! I can’t see without them,” he shouted.
Fah held the glasses up to the light and blinked at the refraction; the guy was not lying.
“All in good time,” she said amiably, “you look much more handsome without them. If you want a girl you must learn to be more polite. How about offering one a coffee?”
“Well I don’t know. I’m kind of on duty,” he stammered.
Fah made a show of looking around to ascertain what the man’s duties could possibly be, and she noticed for the first time a two-storey building about fifty metres behind him.
“You don’t look too busy to me. Come on over and meet my friends.”
The man was called Mohammed. He lived in Hat Yai and had only been in Korat for a week. He was cagey about what he actually did, just saying that the boss paid him to make sure there was not any trouble. He did not actually know where he was. He said he found it a relief to talk to some girls he could actually understand. The truth was that he could only understand Fah because she had reverted to Bangkok Thai. They were sitting on crude benches around a table covered with the usual fly infested paraphernalia of cheap Thai cafes. Fah had allowed Mohammed to put his arm around her shoulder and another sister was resting her hand lightly on his thigh.
“What girls don’t you understand?” Fah murmured with a seductive double entendre.
“Well you know, they don’t speak Thai.”
“The girls in the house?”
Mohammed flinched, aware of his mistake.
“No, I mean in the market and the bars,” he blustered.
Fah pretended not to notice.
“Well I am glad you understand me; and I am sure I understand
you.”
Fah started to finger the soft glossy hair on Mohammed’s chest, when the sharp blast of a klaxon followed by a string of swearwords interrupted the reverie. Mohammed leaped to his feet and ran in the direction of the noise. Fah and her sisters melted into the crowd.
21
There was a sharp discussion among the sisters as to how useful Mohammed might prove to be. He was a man, and therefore stupid, but this facet cut both ways. Fah had no doubt that she could seduce him, but whether he would be willing or able to smuggle her into the house was another question. He was also a coward and totally under the control of “the boss”.
No one hired a goon with a gun unless there was something to protect. The assumption that Mohammed was guarding a brothel staffed by girls and young women was, however, no more than that, an assumption. Activity would be restricted to hours of darkness, when any attempt at covert surveillance would be dangerous. They did not know how many other guards were employed and whether they were rather more professional than Mohammed. Fah asked for suggestions before giving her own. When none came, she began to speak slowly and seriously.
“If a guard hears a noise in the bushes, he may well fire a couple of rounds as a precaution. He will do so through fear of the unknown. If, on the other hand, he is confronted by an undesirable but recognised event, he will have no reason to panic. My idea is that we enlist our little brothers to beat up the entire area. Twelve of the slobs on half-a-dozen bikes should be sufficient. Everyone knows better than to mix with adolescent boys exalted by hormone-induced madness. All the guards will expose themselves to swear at them and shake their fists, but do nothing more. If the brothers pass the house several times they may also see punters entering or leaving, perhaps also a young face peeking out from behind a window blind. It will be the task of the passengers to observe while the driver keeps his eyes on the road.”
“Won’t it be very dangerous? They are very young. Suppose they have an accident?” A little sister asked timidly.
“We are all the same age, although boys never mature. Racing bikes is something they do all the time, probably for that very reason. There will be little other traffic around. At the slightest suspicion of any hostile reaction, for example one of the hoods starting up a bike or a car, they will be told to scatter.”
The little sister was cowed. She knew her brothers would embrace the plan enthusiastically, but she still had the uncomfortable feeling that Fah regarded them as expendable.
The operation was fixed for 7.00pm on Saturday, pay day for thousands of casual labourers living in barracks, often hundred of miles distant from their families. A racetrack along minor roads had been marked out on a map with a circumference of about three kilometres. The brothers were instructed to make three or four circuits at a moderate speed of 60kph to gather what information they could before causing alarm; they were then to start the race proper at maximum velocity and with maximum noise.
Fah’s plan went like clockwork. During the first quarter of an hour three men were seen approaching the house; a guard checked their identity before opening the sliding door by remote control. One brother thought he saw a glimpse of a middle-aged woman inside. On the last slow circuit the guard seemed to be becoming annoyed and yelled out to the motorcyclists to bugger off. This was taken as the starter’s flag and the six bikes bunched together and now roared past the house every ninety seconds. The guard called for help and after a few minutes three men emerged from the house, in their underwear but with guns in their hands.
“What the fuck’s going on?”
“It’s just some crazy kids getting their kicks! Why did you have to disturb us? You’ve given me lovers’ balls you bastard.”
“What do you want us to do? No one will thank us for shooting up children.”
This last reasonable observation was made by Mohammed. The duty guard explained that the riders had already been circling for twenty minutes and he was suspicious.
“Then call the boss and leave us in peace.”
Mohammed used his own remote to open the door and re-enter the house, followed by his colleagues. The brothers continued to race around their track and were rewarded briefly by the sight of a few tired young faces at two upstairs windows. They did not scatter until a car cut across their path and stopped at the house. Nevertheless they had time to recognise the driver with his insignia of police colonel. It was Korat’s chief of police, no less.
Fah was ecstatic with the success of her little brothers’ operation and embraced each of them with genuine warmth once they had had a shower. The involvement of the epitome of male violence did not deter Fah. On the contrary it strengthened her determination. The four guards appeared more interested in taking advantage of their charges than protecting them. The only question was how to trick them into giving Fah access to the house. For a moment she considered asking one of her big brothers to pose as a punter, but she dismissed the idea for two reasons. The less noble was pride; the more rational was the evidence that punters were not accepted off the street, they all had been screened and registered beforehand.
The sisters debated again the possibility of seducing or suborning Mohammed, while the brothers listened. While he was on duty he could open the door for Fah, but would not be in a position to take advantage of the opportunity. It would be necessary for him to obtain the connivance of one of his colleagues, which doubled the risks. There was also the question of the shadowy Madame. As the women fell into silent thought a young brother, Lek, piped up.
“I’m sorry Fah, but in all the excitement I forgot to tell you. On our first or second pass of the house I recognised a man entering. He teaches at my school; and I think his wife is a teacher at yours.”
Fah beamed at him.
“How well do you know him? Does he teach you? Do you think you could arrange a private conversation with him?”
“I can try. He teaches physics. I was in his class two years ago for an introductory course, but I was no good and dropped the subject. Perhaps I could ask to talk to him about starting up again.”
Khun Purachai was flattered by Lek’s request to have a chat with him about the possibility of taking up physics again and readily agreed to meet him at a coffee bar after school. They had only taken a couple of sips when Purachai was startled by a young woman who asked if she could join them.
“My sister, sir, Fah. She is one of your wife’s pupils,” Lek addressed his remark to his coffee cup.
From now on Fah was in charge. If Purachai had had any inkling of what Fah was about tell him and to suggest he would have walked out without ceremony; but he had no reason to suspect anything. Fah began talking in the quiet seductive purring tone that she was perfecting. Purachai was at first shocked and frightened and prepared to deny everything. Who could make such certain identification at night from a passing motorcycle? It was no evidence in a court of law; but his wife was not a court of law.
Transfixed by Fah, he listened in bewilderment at the proposal she put to him. It was unintelligible, but, as blackmail went, not much to ask in comparison with the threat to his marriage. Purachai had not noticed that Lek had slipped away; when he did, Fah told him not to worry. It was not necessary for Lek to learn the precise details; she ran her family on the bureaucratic principle of “need to know”. Fah and Purachai shook hands on the deal. When he had made the arrangements he would leave a coded message on her mobile phone.
22
Purachai and his son arrived at the brothel at sunset to ensure that they would be the first of the night’s visitors. The Madame had been highly amused at Purachai’s fears that his son might be homosexual and his intention to force him to have sex with a girl.
Fortunately Mohammed was not on duty that evening; but even if he had been it is unlikely that he would have recognised Fah with her close cropped hair and army jacket. She hung back, feigning unwillingness, as the Madame led the pair to a room that Purachai knew only too well. The Madame had understood when he intimated that he would not take a girl himself, although he was willing to pay the price of two. He would wait with his son until the girl arrived in order to give him precise instructions as to what was expected of him.
The girl, Noy, recognised Purachai as an old customer, but was taken aback by the presence of a stranger. Fah’s magnetism had not, however, been cropped with her hair and she took no time in soothing the girl’s fears and explaining the plan. She asked directions to the dormitory and was told the special knock by which girls regained admittance. Noy described the two rooms and how the girls were shackled in pairs by their ankles, but otherwise could move around the rooms and the toilet area freely. At that moment three of the girls were in a side room entertaining the off-duty guards, one of whom was Mohammed.
Fah thought it could have been much worse. Sending Purachai back downstairs to chat with the Madame, she instructed the girl to stay in the room and make occasional appropriate noises just in case anyone stopped to listen. It took Fah only ten seconds to reach the dormitory and before knocking she unzipped her jacket to allow her braless breasts to bulge becomingly. The girl who opened the door still jumped back with surprise, but Fah put her fingers to her lips to quieten her. The girl, Nit, was Noy’s partner and the empty half of the handcuffs clanked on the ground as she moved. Fah knelt down and with two wriggles of a piece of wire released her. There were no lights in the room and Fah could barely make out the shapes of the other girls slumped on mattresses.
Fah told Nit that she and her sisters had come to rescue them. Nit was to give the information to each pair of girls in turn and then Fah would follow and open the handcuffs. In five minutes all the girls were free.
Now came the hard decision. Fah was certain that she could deliver these girls safely into the arms of her waiting sisters if she initiated her exit strategy immediately. The girls, however, were even more unwilling than she was to leave three of their friends behind. How on earth was Fah to extricate them from the guards without their raising the alarm? While she was thinking there was another knock on the door. A waif like creature slipped into the room.
“That Mohammed is useless. All he ever thinks of is a big-boobed woman he saw a few weeks ago.”
“Where is Mohammed now?” Fah asked. “Is he still in the room with the others?”
The girl started at the strange voice and presence and saw with astonishment that all her friends were free of their shackles.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I am the woman Mohammed is thinking about,” Fah answered. “I have come to take him away and all of you too. Where is he?”
“On the staircase smoking a cigarette.”
Fah grimaced. The smell of cigarettes was almost as nauseating as the touch of a man. Since Mohammed was sitting astride their escape route, there was no alternative. She asked whether the other two guards were already satisfied and on receiving an affirmative reply she told the girl to tell her two friends that they were wanted by Madame. With any luck the two goons would just turn over and snooze. Sending Nit to fetch Noy, Fah went to the staircase and, creeping up behind Mohammed, ran her hands down his bare chest.
“What?” was all Mohammed could exclaim before Fah’s hand closed his mouth.
“I’m the woman of your dreams. You ran away from me last time. This time you are going to run away with me. We just walk downstairs and open the door. Madame is occupied and my sisters will take care of the guard.”
Fah sensed that Mohammed’s will had been captured by her own and that there would be no resistance. She pressed a button on a Buddha amulet that she wore on a chain around her neck. Within seconds she heard the voices of two of her sisters flirting with the guard outside the front door. Fah led Mohammed down the stairs followed by the children and indicated to him that he should open the door with his remote control. Fah then pulled Mohammed aside so that the girls could file out quietly. The guard’s attention was completely distracted; but if he had reacted Fah’s instructions were that the coquetry should terminate with extreme prejudice. On the other side of the road twenty girls on motorbikes were waiting; and twenty captive girls disappeared instantly with them into the night.
“I’m finished, daddy,” Fah sang out in the direction of Madame’s office. “Can you make your own way home?”
There were two bikes still parked in the shadows. Fah pushed Mohammed onto the back of one and revved the engine. This was the signal for the sisters to complete their flirtation. One kneed the guard in the groin with immense satisfaction, while the other removed his gun. By the time he recovered there was nothing to be seen except mosquitoes and the rear view of Khun Purachai making his escape.
There was only one person outside the family to whom Fah had confided her plans.
Sunny had obtained her degree in sociology and was now working in Bangkok at a United Nations Displaced Persons Unit. Fah was aware that in the past children rescued from prostitution had often merely exchanged the fire for the frying pan. Under Sunny’s aegis, Fah was confident that the girls would receive careful rehabilitation and, if possible, effective reunion with their families.
The first stop for the convoy was the local offices of Thai Rath where Sunny was waiting for them. They would just be in time for the next day’s edition. Now the girls were safe, Fah told journalists the location of the brothel and suggested they stake it out for a while. Fah’s conviction in the stupidity of the male animal knew no bounds; her prime purpose achieved, she saw no reason not to seek a bonus. Her contempt was rewarded when twenty minutes later the chief of police, significantly alone and in mufti, was trapped by photographers’ flashlights as he entered his house of ill repute.
Fah and Sunny had fallen into each other’s arms and continued to hug until Fah felt a blow on her shoulder.
“Hey what about me?” Mohammed asked indignantly.
Fah took a 500 baht note out of her pocket.
“A bus leaves for Hat Yai at 6.00am. I suggest that you are on it, lover boy.”
Fah and Sunny renewed their embrace.
23
Thailand
was by now the predominant force in ASEAN. With a per capita income
equal to Singapore it generated over half the GDP of the South East
Asian trading bloc. It had even surpassed Korea, whose economy had
barely survived the implosion of the communist north. There were two principal reasons for Thailand’s increased prosperity. In the first place, the growth of democratic institutions had enabled successive governments to eradicate the cancer of corruption with a consequent huge inflow of capital investment. The second reason was the prompt and pragmatic approach to HIV/AIDS from its first appearance in a kingdom blessedly free of theocratic influences. Although there had been great suffering, Thailand had maintained a viable workforce, which was able to sustain improvements in health, education and general living standards.
Its three neighbours to the north and east had followed the fate of sub-Saharan Africa. In Burma, Laos and Cambodia practically the only people left alive were orphaned children and the elderly. Although the dictatorial regimes retained nominal control, administration was effectively in the hands of UN agencies. Despite historic fears and jealousies, Thailand had inevitably been drawn in to start rebuilding the economy. Disgruntled patriots muttered about colonialism; but there were too few to cause much trouble.
When Sunny was a girl, orphaned children from Thailand’s neighbours were cared for and educated in Thailand. Now the policy had changed. EU and UN contributions were redirected to reestablishing the infrastructures of health and education in the ravaged countries. As far as possible, children were returned to their homelands to play their part in the reconstruction. The Bangkok centre for which Sunny now worked was in essence a holding station where children were assessed, given any necessary medical and psychiatric treatment, and psychologically prepared for a return to homes that most of them had never seen.
Sunny knew that the policy was correct, but she felt the continual wrench of parting from new friends. She often discussed with Oliver by e-mail the idea of following the children back to one of the countries, but Oliver persuaded her that her work in Bangkok was more valuable, even if it was more stressful for her. In Burmese mountains or Cambodian lakes she would simply disappear; she would also never be able to see Fah.
Sunny was now no longer just a political lesbian. Fah, she recognised, was at a stage Sunny had been at her age, although Fah was in every way more mature than she was. Their friendship was passionate and physical, but for Fah it was a thing apart; her heart was confined by her mission. For several days after the rescue Fah remained intoxicated. Hailed as a heroine she marched from one TV studio to the next proclaiming the rights of woman and the evil that was man. It was with difficulty that Sunny managed to calm her down when the interest inevitably waned and millions had failed to rally to her standard.
Sunny patiently explained that a schoolgirl could hardly expect to be elevated to power overnight. Her magnetism and dynamism needed to be matched by knowledge of the enemy. The law still barred from parliament or the senate citizens who did not have a university degree. As much as she might despise these institutions, she would only conquer them from the inside.
Sunny suggested that Fah should follow her footsteps and read sociology at Thammasat, and in the meanwhile join and dominate the youth wing of a political party. New parties were still born annually (often stillborn) while others merged or split or disintegrated in the constant attempt of narrow interests to remain on top of the sandcastle. Sunny had recently joined the New Liberal Party, which was based on Bangkok’s urban intelligentsia. She knew they were trying to expand in the provinces and Fah could well become a big fish in the small pond of Korat before entering the national scene when she went up to university in Bangkok. Fah was never too proud to accept advice from someone she loved. During her final year at school, with Fah leading her invincible band of foot soldiers, the New Liberal Party became a major political force in Korat, second only to the party in government.
Din and Nok sent Fah a letter of congratulation on her exploit. Nok was genuinely admiring, but Din considered the episode ridiculous and egoistic. The girls would be replaced as fast as mosquitoes return to a swamp after a token spraying. Unaware of the support Fah was receiving from Sunny, Din falsely assumed that Fah had no sense of direction or long term objective.
Din now had the mind and body of an eighteen-year-old and he was damned if he was going to waste time twiddling his thumbs until he reached the age for university entrance. With Nok’s doubtful acquiescence he bribed an official to issue replacement birth certificates adding three years to their age. He presented Oliver with the fait accompli and asked him to bring forward their applications for Oxford and Cambridge. Oliver seemed neither shocked nor surprised. He was undergoing the depressions of a premature middle age and no longer had the energy to manipulate events himself. He was content, if not exactly happy, to pass the baton to his children.
Oliver’s relationship with Yoshi had deteriorated into a distant friendship. Back within the reach of his powerful family, Yoshi had succumbed to persistent pressure to marry and produce progeny. At first he denied that this would affect his love for Oliver, but neither of them were deluded. In another ten years Oliver could probably pass for Yoshi’s father; they both knew that it was better to make a clean break.
Oliver had also become bored with Japan. After the initial excitement and a certain celebrity status had waned, he had discovered that few Japanese were willing to take foreigners into their hearts. Increasingly he thought of returning to Thailand, or perhaps even Europe. There was also Mary to think of.
Ever since Sir Andrew had died, Mary had dropped very broad hints that she would like to see more of her son, but the thought of England depressed Oliver even more. He had returned for the midwinter funeral and had ensured that Mary’s affairs were in order.
On his retirement, Sir Andrew had shocked Oliver by purchasing and renovating a ramshackle house in the county town of Amblesham. Oliver was as certain as he could be that Stephen had never told his adoptive parents the story of Oliver Trent, but perhaps he had mentioned the town in passing at some time and it had stuck in Andrew’s mind. From his mother’s letters he was certain that it was the very house in which her namesake had lived and died.
The thought made Oliver feel quite ill. He had no option, however, but to stay there with Mary for a couple of weeks, possibly in the very room he had occupied in his previous incarnation. Why was fate playing such games with him and those around him? Oliver even had the ludicrous thought that one Mary was the Buddhist reincarnation of the other. The dates would fit, not that the daemon who was shaping his ends had much regard for human concepts of time. Oliver admitted to himself that he had never understood general relativity, let alone the mathematical models of space-time developed in the subsequent century. Perhaps Nok would be able to shed some light on the matter if he developed into the genius that he was threatening to be.
Overcoming his reluctance, Oliver flew to England to see Mary again and to obtain places for Din and Nok at Oxford and Cambridge. As he expected, Nok’s place at Trinity was solely dependent on his obtaining a scholarship. Din’s place at Oxford, within the quota for foreign students, was more dependent on Oliver’s chequebook.
Before going to Amblesham, Oliver caused some consternation at St George’s Hospital by requesting a complete check-up. No one he knew still worked there, but his records were found in the archives. By now his case barely merited a passing reference in the genetics syllabus. The tests merely confirmed the obvious: Oliver was ageing fast and the rate of change was also increasing.
While walking in the woods around Amblesham, Oliver reached a temporary decision. First he e-mailed to Tokyo his resignation on health grounds. Then he telephoned his agent in Spain. He had almost forgotten that he had never sold the property Stephen had left him. Occasional rental income covered the cost of upkeep, and while Oliver was in Tokyo El Castillon might have been on another planet. Now it seemed very close and inviting. The place was empty and future bookings could easily be cancelled.
Five days later Oliver landed at Malaga’s Pablo Picasso airport.
24
Nok had never felt so cold in his life as the winds swept down across the fens from the Arctic. The physical cold was, however, more than compensated by his mental exhilaration. Mathematics was an addiction far more powerful than any drug. Outside his immediate colleagues, and the chess club where he relaxed, he was scarcely known. Forewarned by Oliver, he escaped from the proselytising Christian fanatics in the calm environs of the small Buddhist temple.
There could have been no greater contrast with the launch of Din’s campaign at Oxford. With no abashment he deliberately marketed himself as cynically as a candidate for the US presidency. For Din, knowledge was not virtue, knowledge was power. He would indubitably obtain a first class degree and become president of the union. In the meantime he would become the person whom all students needed to know, in particular those who would themselves subsequently become powers in their own countries.
Din made his maiden speech at the union in the traditional debate “that this house has no confidence in His Majesty’s government”, when leading politicians from Westminster were the guest speakers. Without notes, and in an apparently impromptu address, Din stole the show by comparing the complaints of the previous speakers with the way successive Thai governments tackled similar problems. His humour was proportional to his lack of patriotism (which earned a belated rebuke from a second secretary at the Thai Embassy); but by the following morning his name was on everybody’s lips and invitations to drinks and select dinner parties flooded in from dons and fellow undergraduates alike. All of the political parties vied for his support; but Din could see no advantage in being labelled and tied down since he had no local ambitions.
Neither Nok nor Din would have described themselves as gay, perhaps for slightly different reasons. They both shared, however, the dislike of the importation of the word into a culture where it did not really belong. The divide in Thailand was still not between gay and straight, but between men, women, and women of the second category or katoeys. Nok, being the more introverted and cerebral, simply was not on a search for sexual adventure or partnership, although when it happened he welcomed it and was happy. His circle of acquaintances was almost entirely male and when, one evening, a friend’s arm dropped across his shoulder and remained there he felt warm and content rather than excited.
For Din, sexuality was just another weapon in his armoury. As with politics he had no intention of reducing his options prematurely. He might admit to himself that he preferred sex with men, but he would never confess that to a woman. Tales of his promiscuity were probably exaggerated, but his conquests in the wider sense were also underestimated. Neither did he confine himself to Oxford, but snapped up every opportunity for exchange visits in Britain and abroad. As a Thai no one complained if he spoke English; but in fact he soon discovered the facility of speaking the romance languages, badly but with charm.
Nok received Oliver’s suggestion that he spend Christmas in Spain with pleasure. His brother was rather disgruntled since he had been weighing the merits of a handful of prestigious invitations from well-heeled and well-placed new friends. On the other hand, he was aware that Oliver was paying for his pleasures and was spending at least twice as much on him as on Nok. Oliver explained that an English Christmas was a dull family affair and that, as in Thailand, the main celebration was on new year’s eve; he also hinted that Din might well have some reading to catch up on.
Both brothers were transfixed by the bright warm sunlight that greeted them. The hills that encircle Malaga evoked memories of Thailand, if not precisely of Korat. Oliver had spent a busy six months refurbishing the farmhouse and taming the jungle, which the surrounding garden had become. The cypress trees that Stephen had planted between the swimming pool and the road were now fully grown and provided total privacy. The rows of figs and almonds, on the mound towards the sea beside the old ruins, were also mature and the kitchen shelves groaned under the jars which awaited his guests. In a makeshift shelter on the terrace a dozen demijohns were slowly fermenting part of the autumn’s crop from the vines. Stephen had never bothered to make wine. Now that the European Union had finally harmonised its taxes on alcohol (upwards naturally), it made no sense to let the grapes go to waste, or to feed them to the one remaining herd of goats that scratched the dusty landscape waiting for the winter rains.
Whenever Oliver’s eyes rested contentedly on this corner of paradise that was part of Stephen’s legacy, his mind never failed to throb with the memory of his other legacy – the nexus between himself and Oliver Trent. Despite all his discussions with Darunpan, he still did not know what to believe. What had blighted his life had not been the ageing process, but the fear of not dying. He consoled himself slightly with the thought that Oliver Trent had never known that he had had a past, let alone that he would have a future. If he followed the pattern, any future Oliver need know nothing about the past. To him the cycle was an obscenity. Yet who was he to say that it was not predetermined by some higher consciousness? If he was the only one concerned, he felt that he would happily destroy himself and break the circle. Unwittingly and unwillingly, he had passed on the curse to some fifty other human beings. Should he tell them? Since Oliver had blamed Stephen for telling him, should he incur his children’s blame? There was no hurry. They already knew, and had accepted, that they must not conceive. He could write them each a letter to be given to them by a lawyer on their fiftieth birthday when their current life would be nearing its end. He had invited Nok and Din partly out of a natural parental wish to know them better as adults, but also in the hope that spending some time with them might help him resolve his own problem in some unknown way.
If Oliver had hoped to be given time before broaching the painful topic, he was immediately disabused. Neither of his sons could conceal their shock at his appearance. The elegant professor who had always dressed immaculately when he visited them in Thailand had been replaced by an uncouth rustic. Oliver’s hair was long and matted, his slacks were stained with soil and his sweater was full of holes where it had been attacked by the thorns of roses, bougainvillea and the lemon tree. Oliver grimaced and wiped his head with a handkerchief.
“Hi fellows, I have changed a bit you see. I hardly ever manage to get to town for a haircut; and there is not usually anyone to dress up for up here.”
Oliver had sent a local taxi driver to meet them rather than drive himself. He had bought a small car, which had known many drivers and which he only trusted to take him as far as the supermarket on the outskirts of Rincon de la Victoria. The thought of breaking down on the motorway terrified him.
Nok and Din each accepted a glass of dry white wine and followed Oliver around as he showed them his estate, carefully trying not to scratch their shoes or snag their clothes on the branches. Eventually Oliver allowed them to settle in deckchairs on the terrace.
“So how have your first terms gone?” Oliver asked.
Surprisingly, Nok was the first to speak, perhaps because he had less to say and nothing to hide. In his nervousness he soon lost both his father and brother with his explanations of the latest astrophysical theory. He stuttered to a halt and Oliver turned towards Din.
“So where do they start you off these days? Plato, Aristotle, Adam Smith, Marx, Keynes? I see you have brought a number of books as I suggested. Who are your lecturers?” Oliver named a couple of his contemporaries and realised his mistake from the surprise on Din’s face.
“You mean that they were up at Oxford with you?”
“And they look ten years younger? Is that right?”
Din nodded sadly. Oliver refilled their glasses before continuing.
“You have got to face up to this ageing problem. At the moment you are taking advantage of it, as I did. The only advice I can give is to continue to do so. Don’t waste any time.”
Din had recovered his composure.
“Many people die young, all those romantic poets for example. I am sure I can achieve more in twenty years than anyone else in forty. How about you Nok?”
“I am lucky. Most mathematicians produce their major work in their twenties anyway. Afterwards they just teach and fill in the gaps.”
Oliver smiled and pointed at the pool.
“By four o’clock the water becomes just bearable. I still swim twice a day, but in the morning I am out again as soon as it has woken me up. A bit chilly for Thais I expect. Why don’t you settle in, have a shower and start your reading while I prepare the supper.”
The atmosphere improved over the meal. Oliver had made Tom Yam with prawns and squid and whatever herbs and spices he could find. To his surprise he had stumbled across a huge clump of lemon grass when he was clearing the vegetable plot and chili peppers had seeded themselves profusely beneath the jasmine. He wondered where on earth Stephen in his dotage had obtained them. The soup was followed by steamed fish and watermelon. Din and Nok appreciated the taste of home and were pleasantly relaxed by the rioja. Oliver had rapidly resolved to say nothing about Oliver Trent. All the same, it was a sad and serious pair of young men who retired to bed. They had seen the future and they did not like it.
25
Fah was ambivalent about Din’s duplicity. As a sibling she was angry that he had stolen a march on her; as a women she was contemptuous of his masculine pursuit of self-interest. Yet it was equally true that she and most of the elder sisters had outgrown their schools and for a year many of them found more satisfaction in promoting the National Liberal Party in Korat. Not a few also found the intoxication of politics an opportunity for romance. Some of the elder brothers also attached themselves to the campaign and in at least one instance initiated an incestuous attachment, which Fah took pains to nip in the bud.
One year of provincial politics was quite long enough and, with Sunny’s help and without any explicit falsification, Fah was accepted at Thammasat to read sociology. Sunny was both thrilled and anxious. While Fah was in Korat Sunny had been able to endure her absence and luxuriate in their infrequent brief encounters. Now that Fah was in the capital, Sunny felt the aching need to live with her as her lover. This did not fit in with Fah’s plans. She did not wish to be limited in any way to one person, let alone to be possessed by her. It was not that she wanted freedom to be promiscuous. Her feelings had not changed. Sex was a vulgar activity imposed by people whom she despised. Physical contact between women was merely the expression of the bond that united them and which differentiated them. Only through this unity could they overcome the oppressor.
Ironically Fah’s modus operandi was not dissimilar to Din’s although her motives were antithetical. She found the course work undemanding and was frustrated when she found that the lecturers were no more willing than her schoolteachers to engage in argument. She was bewildered by the subservience of her fellow students, who outside the classroom would discuss politics with insight and passion. In this milieu Fah was soon prima sine paribus.
Would the unspeakable Mr Wright have been proud of his creation if he could have seen her now? Fah was five foot eight inches with shoulder-length, black hair crowning the features and complexion of a Roman noblewoman. Although clothed in the standard white blouse and black skirt, she exuded the authority of a princess. So Mr Wright might well have been proud; but if he had looked into her eyes he would have been glad that he was half a world away in the safety of a Florida penitentiary. All men saw their power, but Fah managed to conceal the hatred, which she directed at all their sex as proxy for that one evil man.
Fah maintained her campaigning for the New Liberal Party. Unlike Din, she was in her own country and was expected to take a political position. Moreover, party loyalties were far more flexible than in England and she would endure no lasting handicap even if the party disintegrated in confusion and recriminations. She was co-opted immediately onto the committee and lost no time in manoeuvring other women into positions of influence.
With Fah’s departure, the enthusiasm of many of her sisters for conventional politics waned.
Five of the elder ones had been entranced by an ancient video of Britain’s Spice Girls and decided to smash their way to stardom via the myriad TV shows aimed at lovelorn teenagers. They called themselves Saaw Phet (Spicy Girls) and each adopted the name of a different coloured spice. Since they all still looked alike they differentiated themselves by dyeing their hair the appropriate colour. The colours were chosen by lot: one sister retained her natural black locks, the others were red, orange, green and purple. At their first audition the producer persuaded them to drop the esoteric epithets in favour of the simple colours. So the five became famous as Dam, Dang, Som, Khian and Kha-min. Their appearance, if not their music, made an immediate sensation. They were snapped up by a music company, which provided them with songs and a backing band until they learned to play and compose for themselves.
Other news that reached Fah’s ears from Korat was less heartening. Free from Fah’s watchful eye two of her elder siblings had renewed their romance and the sister was pregnant. The local obstetrician was waiting frantically for the results of the amniocentesis. Abortion was still taboo in Thailand, although permitted in exceptional circumstances. No one wanted to be put to the test. The doctor’s worst fears were realised when the chromosome analysis revealed a double trisomy. The foetus had received the abnormality from both its parents. The expectant mother resolved the issue by flatly refusing an abortion. The incest had been an act of rebellion against her circumstances. Despite the mounting evidence, she had convinced herself that the whole story was a pack of lies. The father did not wait to be charged or consulted; he resolved his problems in a time-honoured fashion by running away and joining the army.
To the relief of everyone except the mother, the child was stillborn at eight months. The tiny corpse was sent to Chulalongkorn University Hospital for autopsy and was soon forgotten.
The younger brothers and sisters missed Fah; but her departure was also quite a relief. It enabled them to dissociate themselves from their elder siblings whose precocity had become an embarrassment. Slowly they reintegrated themselves into the anonymity of their peers.
It was the elder brothers who suffered most from Fah’s departure. They had already been deprived of their natural leader; jealousy of Din and Nok was tacit but widespread. Now the one person who could restrain the acting out of their frustrations had also deserted them. Some exploited their beauty to achieve a string of conquests of either sex; others sought to become leaders of one or other of the teenage motorbike gangs that terrorised the neighbourhood at weekends. During Fah’s first year away, two brothers were badly injured and one was killed. Returning for the funeral, Fah implored her brothers to settle down and pick a goal. They could achieve anything they wanted, but they needed to work at it rather than lash out blindly.
Fah left it to Sunny to inform Oliver of his son’s death. Oliver dredged sufficient Thai from his memory to write a letter of condolence to the mother; but he told Sunny, in effect, that there was nothing more he could do for his children. He expressed the hope that before long Din might return to Thailand and take control.
Although he tried to conceal the fact from others, and especially from his children and Sunny, despair had now taken command of Oliver’s life. In apocalyptic moments he saw himself as Siegmund, the son who proved so useless to the god who sired him. Siegmund’s role had been solely to sing Wagner’s most lyrical aria, breed with his sister and be killed. Oliver had never sung in public, but he had bred with prolixity and was now waiting for the moment to kill himself. It would be cowardly and unfair to do so until Din, Nok and Fah at least were fully established.
It was quite an indulgence to plan how ultimate destruction could unfailingly be achieved. One attractive idea was to emulate Empedocles and throw himself into Etna’s crater during en eruption; the obstacles were, however, insurmountable. Who would allow a doddery old man to ascend the slopes, even if he was equal to the challenge? Oliver recoiled at any suicide that would directly offend another person, such as jumping in front of a car or a train. On the other hand an overdose, the simplest expedient, was often unreliable. If he failed he was certain he would wake up in a hospital ward with a completely vacant brain and waiting to grow young again. Drowning was his preferred solution. He had always loved the sea and was still a strong swimmer; he felt a symbolic satisfaction at consigning all his lives to the ocean from which all life derived. He could swim out a couple of miles one evening with a bottle of sleeping pills and all would be peacefully resolved.
Oliver drained his gin and tonic, threw off his towel and jumped with fresh enthusiasm into the pool.
26
Din and Nok never discussed their visit to Oliver once they had returned to England. In fact, they hardly communicated at all so great was their mutual incomprehension of each other’s ambitions. After new year the social scene subsided and, to the relief of his tutor, Din took advantage of the vacuum to concentrate on his studies. A snowstorm on new year’s day was followed by an anticyclone, which froze most of the country solid for the remainder of the month. Both Din and Nok bought thicker jumpers and hibernated.
Oliver had agreed to pay for one return trip to Thailand each year, during the long summer vacation. Nok, however, opted to stay in Cambridge and Din persuaded Oliver to allow him to travel in Europe instead.
During April a team of speakers from three Nordic universities had visited the Oxford Union to debate the motion that “Scandinavia is the brains of Europe” and Din exploited this contact to arrange a tour of the lands of the midnight sun. He set off by boat to Bergen, the first time he had ever been on water. His first embarrassing discovery after landing was that the most humble Norwegian spoke English as well as he did. Din realised that his contemporaries at Oxford had been too indulgent of his mistakes and probably mimicked them behind his back. Of equal importance was his appreciation of the simple but warmhearted hospitality of his hosts in their families’ summerhouses near the Arctic Circle.
In Finland he was told that there was at least one lake for each citizen with a sauna on its bank. Encouraged to overcome his modesty and fears, Din followed his hosts’ example. To be honest, the sauna was less oppressive than a Bangkok traffic jam, but in the cold waters of the lake he almost lost consciousness and had to be dragged to the shore. Din had not inherited his father’s aquatic skills.
It was no bad thing that Din’s arrogance had been sanded somewhat by his travels in Scandinavia, because on his return to Oxford he discovered that he was no longer the brightest star in the galaxy. The eldest son of the President of the United States of America had taken up residence in a house in the suburbs, accompanied by his secret service detail and his grand piano. While he was at college in the US, rumours had abounded concerning his academic prowess and his sexuality. The prevalent wisdom in Oxford was that his father preferred to maintain a certain distance from his son, but if the latter kept his nose clean he would have strong claims to a congressional seat on his return to the States.
Robert W Campbell was a scion of an old American family with Scottish roots, which encouraged him to sport the tartan on inappropriate occasions. The exact nature of his post-graduate studies was a mystery, but politics was naturally part of them and it was not long before he was participating in lectures and seminars with Din Marshall. At first, Din was aggrieved by the attention Robert received; but the acolytes were soon dispersed by the combination of Robert’s arrogance and stupidity. Din realised what a narrow course he himself had steered the previous year and was grateful that the curtain had been lifted from his eyes in time.
Din kept his distance until it became obvious that Robert was feeling distressed at unaccustomed neglect and would welcome the assistance of another foreigner in combating the coldness of the natives. Din was not too proud to help Robert with his essays and even invited Robert to accompany him to the union on an occasion when Din was seconding the motion. He did, however, advise Robert to wait a while before attempting to intervene in a debate.
Din was one of the privileged few to be allowed to visit Robert in his lodgings and listen to him play his piano, which had been flown from Boston. Din was no musician and therefore was unaware that neither was Robert. Nevertheless Robert was technically competent and never attempted anything beyond his capacity. Din was perfectly content to let the notes flow over him as he prepared his next essay. Although Robert might not have seduced Oxford society, he would be quite different in his own milieu. If Din went to Harvard it would do him no harm to be a friend of a young congressman.
In the first week of December, Din awoke with a burning forehead and a dull pain in his abdomen. After struggling to the bathroom he saw with horror that his urine was blood red. Din asked John, who lived in the next set, to walk with him the two hundred yards to his general practitioner, just in case he passed out. After a brief examination the GP wrote a prescription for a couple of antibiotics and told Din to stay in bed drinking plenty of liquids, while the doctor arranged an appointment with a urologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital.
“A case of nephritis,” he said, which sounded impressive but was almost a tautology.
“I don’t think the cause is a kidney stone, more likely a constriction, but we won’t know without an x-ray. But first we must reduce the inflammation.”
Din collapsed in bed completely exhausted while John went shopping for bottled water and soft drinks. When he returned, Din was asleep. John pressed a thermometer lightly into Din’s ear; his temperature had dropped below 38C so John felt it safe to leave him and go to his lectures.
Din was feeling almost normal five days later when he took a taxi to the John Radcliffe and spent ten minutes giving his medical history to a delightful young medical student. Din filled in the time reciting the litany of chest and skin infections inseparable from a childhood of poverty in the tropics. One item he reserved for the consultant.
While he was being examined, Din coughed and made his excuses.
“I am afraid that I did not tell your student everything. I was afraid he would not understand and might not retain the confidence. When I tell you, you will appreciate why I wish to maintain the secret.”
“What is it then?” the consultant sounded tetchy.
“I have inherited a trisomy from my father.” Din named the number of the chromosome.
The consultant struggled to remember a footnote from his genetics studies.
“St George’s Hospital Tooting, wasn’t it? Sir Adrian somebody? What was your father’s name?”
“Oliver Marshall.”
“That rings a bell. We were never told he had children. We assumed it was a freak event.” The consultant belatedly remembered he was treating an ill patient.
“What are the effects? As I recall your father was perfectly healthy. Is he still alive?”
“Yes. He is now living in Spain. But let me ask you a question. How old do you think I am?
“Twenty-one or twenty-two I suppose. Why?” He looked at the notes. “I see you have just had your twentieth birthday.”
“My seventeenth actually. I obtained a forged birth certificate to falsify my age. You will not of course betray my confidence. I am only telling you all this because it might be medically relevant. My father was seventeen when I was conceived, so he would now be thirty-five; but he looks fifty.”
The consultant decided it was time to return to the job in hand.
“Has your father had any kidney problems? No? Then we must wait to see the x-rays before I decide what to do. You will be given an ultra sound scan now and I shall see you afterwards; but the x-ray is a longer job as we want to have a series of pictures of an intravenous fluid passing through the two kidneys. My nurse will tell you where to go now.”
The ultrasound merely confirmed the absence of any calcification. The consultant told Din that he would probably have to perform a pieloplasty, but needed the x-rays to be sure. When Din had departed the doctor phoned the secretary of the Professor of Genetics and asked if they could meet that evening for a drink.
“Well, George, that is a surprise!” Professor Griffiths exclaimed and took another sip of the amontillado, which he kept in his office for emergencies.
“I bumped into old Adrian a couple of times at conferences. He was a dear old fellow and a great self-publicist. You could say he put genetics on the map, to coin a phrase. The Nobel Prize was absurd of course. But if you think of one or two doubtful Peace Prizes, perhaps medicine had been let off lightly. They wanted to encourage the Third World, you know. What was that Thai chappie’s name? Doesn’t matter. I expect you’ll be keeping your patient in here for a few days after the operation? I am sure he will be glad of a chat. I would certainly like to have a look at the chromosome myself. I am sure he won’t mind.”
Din woke up after the operation with a drip inserted into a vein on his left hand and a tube through his penis. His lower abdomen was bandaged and his groin was sweaty and itching. He was practically immobilized and when he attempted to shift his position a sharp pain caused him to desist. A nurse appeared around the curtains and pressed a thermometer into Din’s ear, while grasping his wrist with her other hand.
“The surgeon, Mr Smith, will be here to see you in half-an-hour. Can I get you anything?” She disappeared before Din had time to speak.
“So how do you feel? Constipated? I am afraid that is inevitable. All will pass in the course of time. Sticky? They’ll give you a bed bath after supper. No problems with the operation I am glad to say. Sometimes kidneys can be a little tricky. My guess is that you will regain thirty percent functionality in the right kidney, which is a lot better than nothing.”
George Smith removed the bandage to admire his stitching.
“That’s looking fine; but I want to keep you here for a few more days. There is always a risk of infection I’m afraid.”
As promised, a nurse arrived to give Din a bed bath after supper. She stubbornly refused to wipe around Din’s groin, however, so he grabbed the damp cloth and did the job himself, despite the pain the effort caused. What a weird country he thought as he fell asleep.
27
In the evening of the following day, Din received his first visitor. He half expected to see John since he was the only friend whom Din had told personally of the operation. John had posted notes to a handful of others on the inter-collegiate mail; but this was often slow and unreliable. It was with considerable surprise, therefore, that he saw Robert’s face peer around the curtain. Robert would never personally deign to collect mail at his college; Din assumed that one of his minders was detailed to do so for him.
“Are you all right? I was so worried. They would not let me come any sooner.” Robert sounded more aggrieved than distressed. Doubtless his attempts to pull rank had been met with scorn.
“I’m fine. The operation was only a little more complicated than appendicitis. But you can see that I am still hooked up to this drip and will have to stay here a few more days.”
“But what’s this?” Robert had almost tripped over the half full bottle of urine.
“That’s where it comes out after passing through the remains of my kidneys. I am as helpless as a baby.”
Robert grimaced and turned his attention back to himself.
“I’ve missed you so much. Dr Dawe was beastly about my essay on the War of Independence. You’d think I’d know about my own country!”
Din repressed a smile.
“Did you read any of the books? No? I thought not. I had finished my essay. If I had thought I would have asked John to print you out a copy. Sorry.”
“I know I should not depend on you so much. It was only when you disappeared that I realised how much I did.” Robert grasped Din’s right hand. “You know, I think I am falling in love with you.”
Din groaned inwardly. This was the last thing he wanted. His plans entailed Robert still being his friend when he went to Harvard in two years time. He doubted if a love affair would last two weeks and it was bound to end in recriminations. At any rate Robert was only capable of loving himself, as indeed was Din, but he at least recognised the fact.
“Robert. What a shock! I had no idea! Of course you are one of my best friends, perhaps the very best. Please forgive me if I can’t respond properly under these circumstances.”
Robert gazed into Dins’s eyes. “I know. I know, I can wait.”
Over Robert’s head Din saw the curtain parting and a distinguished middle-aged man entered, exuding authority.
“I am so sorry to have interrupted you, Mr Marshall. I am Edward Griffiths, Professor of Genetics. George Smith had a word with me and I wondered if we could have a short chat.”
“Of course, professor, may I introduce Robert Campbell?” When Professor Griffiths showed no sign of recognising the name, Din added, “You know, his father is the US president.”
“Oh yes of course. I heard you had come to study here for a year or two. How are you liking Oxford?”
Robert mumbled something incoherently and fled the scene.
“Oh dear, why was he so upset?” Griffiths continued, without seeming in the least concerned.
“Never mind. He is having difficulty in adapting. People here don’t always behave towards him as he expects.”
Griffiths shrugged and dismissed the president’s son from his mind.
“So you are Oliver Marshall’s son? I knew of him rather than knew him. I was already a postgraduate, of course. A linguist and a brilliant swimmer as I recall. The last I heard he was lecturing in Tokyo.” This feigned acquaintance had entailed a mere ten minutes research.
“I did not know that Oliver had had any children. You will understand my interest. I knew Sir Adrian Wisdom quite well before he retired and he told me all about the research which won him the Nobel Prize. Obviously this is not the time and place for a discussion.
Perhaps when you are mobile again we could arrange a meeting. You won’t mind if I do a test or two?”
Although Griffiths was practically whispering, Din was glad that he was being deliberately opaque in case anyone should overhear. He also was surprised at the relief he felt at meeting someone who knew his father and his condition. While he was active he managed to forget his inheritance, but lying alone and immobile for hour after boring hour he had started to brood on his future. Din therefore thanked Professor Griffiths politely and said that he would contact the professor’s secretary as soon as he had recovered sufficiently.
The following evening brought the expected visit from John.
“Sorry I haven’t been round earlier, but I gather that Robert came to see you yesterday. I was astounded to find him banging at my door this morning in a state of distress. What a strange child! I hope you did not upset him in some way. At any rate he asked me to give him a copy of an essay of yours; I said that I would need to ask you for its code on the computer, which was a euphemism for permission. I expect you are bored to tears. I went to the second hand bookshop yesterday and picked half-a-dozen at random. There’s also an e-mail from your father.”
Din thanked John, put the pile of books on his locker and sighed.
“Robert was in a bit of a state yesterday, lashed by Dawe’s sarcastic tongue. I suppose Dawe took advantage of my indisposition. You’ll find the essay under WoI.doc. Dawe won’t be fooled for a moment, but you might ask Robert to substitute American English for Thaiglish wherever necessary. Let me just read what pa has to say, so you can send him a reply.”
Oliver’s e-mail was brief and exhibited no undue concern. He invited Din to convalesce in Spain if he felt like it, but it was obvious he did not expect his offer to be accepted.
“Just tell the old man that the operation went well, that I am doing fine and I shall write as soon as I get back to my rooms.” Din decided that it would be kinder if he personally declined the invitation to Spain.
The two friends chatted amiably for a few minutes and when John left Din started sorting through the pile of books. They were mostly thrillers, but there was a fat biography of Gladstone in case Din felt the need for something slightly heavier. The final volume was the slimmest and Din decided that this was the one to read first since he could easily hold it in one hand. He turned the first page and was struck immediately by the author’s note, not by the content, which was anodyne, but by the byline “Hugh Bowers, El Castillon 20xx”. How many El Castillon’s could there be?
Din gained no clue from the prologue, but the ensuing chapters revealed another coincidence. One of the characters was called Mary Marshall, with a son called Patrick. Din’s grandmother was called Mary Marshall. Moreover the name of the old man she took in as a lodger was Oliver. That was one coincidence too many.
Din fumbled for Oliver’s e-mail. His telephone number had been added automatically at the bottom. Din rang for a nurse and asked her to bring him a phone.
“Hi pa! Thank you for your e-mail. I’m well on the way to recovery, but I won’t be able to travel for a few weeks, I’m afraid.”
Oliver was making a few conventional paternal remarks, when Din interrupted him.
“Look, why I am really ringing you is because John bought me a number of second hand books and one of them is really extraordinary. The author, a Hugh Bowers, gives his address as El Castillon; one of the characters is called Mary Marshall and another Oliver. What do you make of it?”
“Oh dear.” Oliver’s anguish communicated itself instantly along the line. “Is it entitled The Peculiar History of Oliver Trent? I thought so. Please turn to the end and read the last sentence.”
Din read out: “Mary Marshall,” Stephen mused out loud. “I think that Oliver has returned home at last.”
Oliver continued.
“That Mary Marshall is my adopted mother,” Oliver continued. “She is still alive and living in Amblesham. I see you recognise the name of the town. Stephen is my late godfather who left me El Castillon in his will. Oliver is myself. Oliver Trent and Oliver Marshall are the same person.”
“I don’t understand,” Din bleated with considerable justification.
“No of course you don’t. Now you have the book you obviously must read it. When you and Nok were here last Christmas I was debating whether it was time to tell you the ancient history. I decided it could wait.”
“But who is Hugh Bowers?”
“That I do not know. He almost certainly, however, rented this house from me at some time over the past ten years. The book was written by Stephen. I suppose he left it on his computer. It was never meant for publication; it was written for me. His computer is so antique that I simply consigned it to gather dust in a corner. I doubt if Bowers had much trouble gaining access. I only hope he lost a lot of money by publishing it.
“Look Din, when you have finished the book you will want to talk to someone, someone who can make some sense of it. Perhaps my doctor in London?”
“Actually pa, the Professor of Genetics here has already been to see me. I thought I ought to tell them before I had the operation in case it was important. I am going to talk to him again once I am up and about.”
This time Oliver sighed with relief.
“I suggest you send the book down to him as soon as you have read it. Please discuss with him the merits of telling Nok. As for the others in Thailand, I shall think about it. There is no need to hurry.”
As soon as he had put the phone down Din began to read the book from the beginning.
28
What an extraordinary story! Seems complete fantasy to me. But
your father believes it is true.”
Din, relieved of his tubes, was sitting in Professor Griffiths’ office.
“Yes sir, and there is some external confirmation. It does not just depend on Stephen Black’s memory or imagination. The little boy Fak is alive and practising medicine in Australia. He remembers the original Oliver Trent.”
“Does he by God? Curiouser and curiouser said Alice.”
“Excuse me sir?”
“I am sorry. A quotation from a nineteenth century children’s book, Alice in Wonderland. It seemed rather appropriate. No matter, the book does not alter in the least what I wanted to talk to you about. We are much better placed than Sir Adrian was to analyse the trisomy. I have been in touch with St George’s and they are going to let me have samples. We should now to be able to identify the role of every gene on the chromosome. I shall not, however, be able to do all the research myself. Some very tricky mathematics is likely to be involved, and I should like professional assistance. Do you mind?”
“Perhaps I could suggest a colleague, sir. My brother Nok is a maths scholar at Trinity Cambridge. He has the same trisomy. I should like to keep it in the family.”
“Well that’s an idea. I did not know you had a brother. He could provide a sample too.” Professor Griffiths was feeling a little disconcerted, as if he was losing control.
“Oh yes, I have fifty brothers and forty-eight sisters all fathered by Oliver Marshall, but by different mothers, of course. Roughly half of them have the trisomy.”
This finally stopped Griffiths in his tracks. He sank back into his chair and closed his eyes.
“OK young man, you had better tell me all you know.”
Nok was surprised to receive an e-mail from his brother and even more at its contents, which asked him to visit Oxford for three or four days without divulging the reason. Full term had now ended and his supervisor thought that a short break would be an excellent idea. So within a week Nok was sipping coffee in Din’s rooms with an expectant air.
“Sorry, brother, for not being explicit, but anyone can read e-mails. Anyway I preferred to tell you face to face.
“When I went in for my operation I was asked for my medical history and for better or worse I told the consultant about the trisomy. He told the Professor of Genetics who interviewed me and I told him the whole story. He knew part of it as he had met the doctor who first analysed pa in London. He wants to do some more tests, since he says that they are far more sophisticated nowadays than they were then.”
Nok shrugged his shoulders and said, “If he wants a sample from me that’s no problem.”
“That’s not all. First, and least important, my urologist would like to x-ray your kidneys just as a precaution.” Nok shrugged again.
“Second, Professor Griffiths said that he would need a mathematician to help with the analysis. I suggested that you might fit the bill.”
At this, Nok’s demeanour changed completely. His eyes lit up as if he had just spotted mate in six.
“Of course. How exciting! When does he want me to start?” Nok’s enthusiasm was wholly cerebral, totally impersonal. The fact that it concerned the building blocks of his own existence was quite irrelevant. Nok had reduced life to mathematics and this was merely confirmation of the correctness of his vision.
There was a knock on the door, followed immediately by the irruption of Robert.
“Sorry Din, I didn’t know you had someone with you. Dawe is giving it me in the neck again. If I could, I’d put the CIA onto him.”
Robert paused and shifted his gaze between Din and Nok in astonishment. Except for the few extra pounds Din carried, the two could still be taken for each other.
“Robert, may I introduce my brother Nok, who is visiting me from Cambridge. Nok, this is Robert Campbell.”
Unlike Professor Griffiths, Nok needed no prompting.
“Sawatdii khun Robert. How are you enjoying Oxford? I expect you are helping Din with American history.”
“Look, sorry,” Robert mumbled, “I’ll come back later. It’s the war of 1814. I just can’t figure what the hell it was all about.”
“You’re not alone there,” Din replied amiably. “But I am afraid I can’t help much. I am already two weeks behind and am on sick leave until next term. Does Dawe really want something before Easter?”
“Well it was last week’s essay. He just tore it up in front of everyone. Do you think he wants to start another war?”
“Do you think you could try Carruthers? He is very patient and methodical. I am sure he would be glad to help.”
“OK. I suppose so.” Robert sounded despondent. This was the first time he and Din had met since his declaration in John Radcliffe and Din suspected that the essay was primarily a pretext.
“Well, would you like a coffee? Do stay. We were only reminiscing.” Din tried to sound as consolatory as he was able. “When do you fly back to the States?”
Answering two questions at once was too much for Robert and he stuttered, “Yes, no, thank you, I mean on the fifteenth. I was wondering if you would like to come too.”
Part of Din regretted the missed opportunity, but the larger portion counselled that if he did not have a ready-made excuse he would have had to invent one.
“Sorry, Robert, I can’t fly anywhere at present. I have even had to turn down my father in Spain. In fact, when the varsity closes down, my insurers are paying for me to spend the vacation in a convalescent home. It will be very boring, but I don’t want any complications.”
“Yes I see. I am sorry too. I’ll ring you before I go, OK?” Robert said, as he left the room.
“Where was I when we were so charmingly interrupted? Oh yes. I was about to tell you of something that I discovered quite by accident.
Do you remember pa talking about his godfather, Stephen, who left him that house in Spain? Well before his death Stephen wrote a memorandum for pa about his background. He left it on his computer and one of pa’s tenants found it and published it as a book. By an extraordinary chance John picked it up at a second hand bookshop. Here it is. Read it while I have a rest, It won’t take you long.”
Nok had been unimpressed by the book – all emotion and no mathematics. When Professor Griffiths began to explain the procedure for mapping the genes on the chromosome, however, he was all ears, whereas Din could not understand a word.
“This is really exciting,” he exclaimed when they left Griffith’s office, “I think it might form the basis of a thesis.”
“Aren’t you supposed to graduate first?” Din asked innocently.
“Things are a bit different in mathematics,” Nok replied. “If you are capable you are treated as an equal from day one. The examinations will simply be a formality.
Din gazed at his brother in awe. How could they be so much the same and yet so different.
“I’ll be in touch,” Nok said as he climbed aboard the bus back to Cambridge.
29
Even
before the end of her first year at Thammasat, the New Liberal Party
began grooming Fah as a parliamentary candidate. Fah herself was
initially hostile to the idea; she remained ambivalent but agreed to
keep her options open. The minimum age for candidates had been
abolished, but the requirement for at least a bachelor’s degree
remained. If elected, Fah would almost certainly be the youngest MP
ever, which would add further lustre to the party. The initial suggestion was that she should simply join the party list, but on this point Fah rebelled. The prime purpose of an MP was to represent the people, and this could only be done effectively by a constituency MP. She did not approve of the list system on principle, although she conceded that it released ministers from constituency responsibilities. Nevertheless she was adamant that no one should be placed on the party list unless she or he had fought at least one election for a constituency. Fah’s eloquence gained the day, although because the party had been created so recently, the principle could not be applied at the forthcoming general election, which fell due in about two and a half years time – about four months after Fah took her final exams.
Fah naturally sought a seat in Korat and the local party was eager to accept her, given the reputation she had already made in the city. She could not be adopted officially, even as a prospective candidate, until she graduated; but the townspeople were left in no doubt that they would be presented with the opportunity to make history. The local papers vied with each other in covering her career at Thammasat and her successes both in politics and on the tennis court, where she had become a formidable competitor. For two years running she was the under-21 national champion and in her final year she reached the semi-finals of the Volvo championship in Pattaya.
The news of Fah’s successes filled Nok’s heart with fraternal pride, but Din’s with disquiet. Had he made the wrong choice in leaving the country? When he returned no one would know him, while Fah would already be a national hero. He racked his brains in an effort to think how to place his image in the minds of his compatriots. Even when he became president of the union or achieved his double first, who would really care? All that interested the proletariat was sport, which he had so far disregarded. What sport was available? Tennis was out and a team sport would not ensure him personal publicity. What was Thai’s greatest passion after football? Boxing? Was that possible? He did not want to risk damaging his brain, but all amateurs wore head guards. The more he thought about it the more attractive the idea became. Pound for pound Thai boxers had proved themselves equal to any in the world. Neither would it do him any harm to train and lose a few kilos. As soon as he had completely recovered from his operation Din resolved to join the varsity boxing club.
Din had heard nothing more from Nok or Professor Griffiths for a month when he received a surprise call from Griffiths’ secretary. She told him that Nok was staying at the professor’s house for a week and that they would both be delighted if Din would join them for dinner the following Friday. At first Din was affronted that his brother should have accepted Griffiths’ invitation without either of them telling him; but he supposed that they were both too engrossed in their work to observe social niceties.
There were six people around the dinner table, since Edward Griffiths had also invited George Smith and his wife. Edward’s wife was called Ann, and George’s Anne; but this nicety was lost on both Nok and Din, who consequently committed an error in his formal letter of thanks.
George and Edward monopolised the conversation over the meal, while the two Ann(e)s spent much of their time in the kitchen and Nok was locked into his own thoughts. George made a polite enquiry concerning Din’s recovery and appeared vaguely interested in his intention to get fit again by taking up boxing, but the two doctors soon relapsed into medical and varsity gossip, which Din did his best to comprehend. When the meal was over Edward called for port and the ladies retired, in the best traditions of the nineteenth century.
Edward began condescendingly. “They do say that one should not discuss business before the brandy, but I hope you will forgive me if I commence with the port.”
Since Din and Nok had no desire to drink either, they had no reason to demur. Each simply wetted his lips in a show of politeness.
“Nok has done a simply splendid job with the data. The final results will not be completed for a few months, but we both felt that the two of you should share our preliminary conclusions, which I myself feel sure will be confirmed. I am sure you will also pardon me if I translate the jargon into English.” Edward grinned at Din and continued.
“We have identified the genes in the unwanted third of the chromosome that affect the ageing process. Computer analysis indicates that their effect is not constant. In the vernacular they can switch on and off. This I think corroborates your experience.” Both Nok and Din were rewarded this time with a grimace.
“So far much as I expected. The result of computer projections, however, will, I am sure, surprise you as much as it did me. Apparently one can expect that after about fifty years the function of the mutant genes will be reversed. Instead of ageing they will have a rejuvenating effect.” Edward smiled as if waiting for applause.
“So the history of Oliver Trent is plausible? Din asked.
“I would not go so far as that. I am sure most of it is fantasy.”
“Who is Oliver Trent?” George enquired.
“He is the hero of a book written by their father’s godfather, which was stolen from his computer and published. Oliver Trent appears in the prologue as an old man and disappears in the epilogue as a baby. Unfortunately Stephen, the author, has been dead for ten years and cannot be cross-examined.”
To the surprise of them all it was Nok, not Din, who responded with unusual passion.
“I would remind you, sir, that it is my father whom you are suggesting is a fantasy. It is true that Stephen is dead; but I have corresponded with Dr Darunpan in Australia and I have been to see Mary Marshall in Amblesham. Each of them confirms key details of Stephen’s account. I began the research purely as an interesting mathematical exercise, but you could say that since then I have become involved. The outcome has real significance for only fifty one people: Oliver Marshall and fifty of his children. One of our affected brothers has already died in a road accident.
“Professor Griffiths, you have the detachment to regard my discovery as abstract science. Publication of the results could have immediate adverse consequences on my brothers and sisters. You may not have noticed, but on the advice of my supervisor the paper that I have given you has been copyrighted.”
“That is outrageous! Detachment is the essential condition for scientific investigation. It was a great mistake to invite you to join me in my work. I would remind you that it was I who gave you all the data!”
Din rallied to the support of his brother.
“And all your data, Professor, was obtained from Nok, Oliver and myself. From what I can gather your contribution was no more than routine.”
“How dare you! What do you know about it? George, perhaps you could inform the young men of scientific ethics.” George, however, was not to be browbeaten by his senior colleague.
“I do not think it is primarily a question of scientific ethics, but of medical ethics. By undertaking tests on these three people you have, in my opinion, created a doctor-patient relationship. It is not the same as conducting tests on a random sample of anonymous undergraduates. In my view the information obtained is confidential.”
Griffiths started to splutter, but could not think of a reply. At that moment his wife reappeared to ask if anyone wanted coffee, followed by Anne Smith. George rose immediately to thank his hostess for a marvellous meal and to apologise for having to leave so early. He had a clinic at 8.00am the next day. His wife looked put out, but interpreted his glance correctly. Nok and Din followed the couple to their car.
“I wish I did not have to stay on here after that episode,” Nok whispered to his brother, “I think we went rather far; but I have not trusted the man for some time.”
Nok’s wish was answered immediately. The front door opened and Griffiths threw Nok’s bag at his feet.
“I think that is everything. Good night and goodbye!”
George drove the brothers back to Din’s college. Very little was said in the car, although Anne was clearly bursting to know what had happened. She was very fond of her namesake and hoped that the strange Thai boys had not caused an irreparable rupture between their husbands. Once he had dropped off Din and Nok, George did his best to reassure her.
30
The following month Din barely scraped a first in part I. His friends and his detractors attributed this fact to the same event. The former maintained reasonably that his concentration had been broken; the latter, with less probability, insinuated that the examiners had been unduly lenient.
The event in question had occurred on the Saturday evening before exam week. Robert Campbell had hardly seen Din for a month as he had respected Din’s commitment to his studies. Robert had become increasingly lonely and decided to drown his sorrows. In the second pub into which he meandered he was greeted by an attractive young man whom he could not remember having seen before. After a few drinks, however, he felt he had known him forever. The youth said his name was Alec and that as he would be coming up in the autumn he had decided to get a flavour of the place in advance.
“Do you think we could go somewhere more private?” Alec whispered, with a gesture towards the man sipping orange juice a few yards away. “The men’s room connects with the other bar. You go first and I will follow in a couple of minutes.”
Alec had reached the entrance to the men’s room before the agent suspected something was wrong. The bar was packed, however, and by the time he had discovered the other exit Alec had disappeared. Robert did not seem at all surprised that there was a taxi idling outside into which Alec pushed him.
“What a bit of luck! Do you have a friend we could visit?”
Robert could only think of Din and gave directions to his college. When they arrived, Alec followed Robert to Din’s door. Robert was too drunk to notice that the cabdriver had not been paid, nor that he was following them at a discreet distance. The night was hot and Din was sleeping naked. When he heard Robert’s voice he did not bother to put on a bathrobe and went straight to open the door. When he did so he was blinded by a flash of light as Robert fell into his arms.
The following morning, the picture was on the front page of the London Sunday newspaper The Animals , under the headline: “President’s son sleeps with Thai peasant”.
The inside pages of The Animals had been written days, if not weeks before. The principal target was the US president, who was a bitter political enemy of the paper’s proprietor. All the stories about Robert Campbell that could be found in the archives of the fringe press in the USA were retouched and exaggerated. A reporter had been sent to Thailand to interview Din’s mother but the only quotation he could extract was that she was very proud of her son. Even the most poorly educated Thai was by now instinctively distrustful of any British journalist. Disappointed with Din’s mother’s neat one bedroom apartment, her photograph was superimposed on a corrugated iron shack in a railway siding. The reporter returned to England without an inkling that a far bigger story had been under his nose.
Robert Campbell and his grand piano were flown back to Boston within twenty-four hours and he was effectively incarcerated on his uncle’s estate. Apart from the US tabloids under the same ownership as The Animals, the story was ignored or used to attack the source. The Guardian in London carried a serious interview with Din in which he deplored the treatment to which Robert Campbell had been subjected. As for himself, he had no complaints; he was proud be called a peasant since that was still the predicament of the majority of his fellow countrymen, whom he would return to serve as soon as he had completed his education.
When the Thai press picked up the story, Din was presented as the hero of the hour. Although Din had truthfully denied any sexual relationship with Robert, the Thai in the street conceived the episode as a Thai conquest of the overwhelming and overbearing world superpower. Din no longer had any need to climb into the silver ring in order to bring himself to the notice of his compatriots. From then on all his academic achievements were extolled and all his speeches in the union were reported in full. When he was elected president of the union all Thailand basked in reflected glory.
Even Fah allowed herself to be quoted in praise of her brother. It would be trite to say that absence made her heart grow fonder, because in their own way they were deeply devoted to each other. It was only their temperaments and divergent ambitions that made clashes inevitable whenever their paths crossed. Fah knew that it would be at least two years before Din returned to Thailand. In the meantime she could profit from his celebrity.
Din readily acquiesced in his tutor’s suggestion that he should come up for the long vac term. Indeed, apart from his duties at the union for the following year, he would devote himself entirely to his studies. In August, Din received a long, illiterate and self-flagellating letter from Robert. All thoughts of a congressional seat had been shelved and the following month he was due to join the family law firm. Before going to England he had managed somehow to obtain a degree in law. Robert begged Din to visit him without realising the opposition his family would erect to any such meeting. Din was not so ingenuous and gave plausible reasons for declining, without hurting Robert’s feelings more than necessary. He assured Robert that if he went to Harvard the following year there would be ample opportunities to get together when the scandal had been forgotten.
Din’s diligence was rewarded with a first and the coveted place at Harvard Business School. Nok, as senior wrangler, was automatically elected a junior research fellow at Trinity College Cambridge. His work on his family chromosome had been completed and securely locked away in an impregnable website. In case of accidents, such as Nok’s sudden death, a printed version was deposited with a local solicitor.
Fah’s final year at Thammasat University was no less a triumph. Her only sadness was the enduring jealousy of Sunny, whom Fah loved dearly but could not satisfy. Sunny tried to impress on Fah the uncertain prospects of politics as a career, but Fah, with the carefree enthusiasm of youth, paid her no regard. Sunny agonised and consulted with Fah’s tutor at Thammasat, but was gently reminded that her training should have taught her that the only life she could live was her own. As soon as Fah graduated, she rented a small apartment in Korat (paid for by the New Liberal Party) and threw herself once more into the daily trivia of political campaigning.
The prime minister delayed the dissolution of parliament as long as legally possible in the belief that a short campaign would accrue to his advantage. It was only during an election that he was unable to exploit the government’s stranglehold on most media outlets in order to deny opposition parties more than a fraction of the publicity that he continuously received. In Bangkok it was obvious from the start that it was a two-horse race. Most of the other parties chose to field token candidates in just a handful of constituencies where they hoped that they would garner enough votes to be significant in the national allocations to the party lists. The fact that the same consideration applied in Korat was entirely due to Fah’s energy and magnetism. In her own constituency she prevailed with seventy percent of the vote, and in the city as a whole the seats were divided equally between the government and the New Liberal Party, a triumph for the latter and a disaster for the prime minister. Although his party was still narrowly the largest when all the results were in, he had lost his absolute majority and in an unprecedented gesture, he resigned immediately and returned to private life. His last act in office was to advise the King to invite Thailand’s oldest political party, the Democrats, to form a government in coalition with the New Liberals.
31
When he wrote to Din to congratulate him on his first class honours, Oliver hinted that his fortune had diminished rapidly while Din was at Oxford and that he could only afford to pay for one year at Harvard. He expressed the hope that Din would find this sufficient for his purposes. Moreover, he suggested that if Din wanted money to spend on himself, it would be a good idea to earn some in the intervening months.
If Din felt resentful he did not show it; within a week he had been engaged as a waiter in a Thai restaurant in south London and had agreed to share a garret room in the vicinity with a fellow employee. Neither Din nor his employer was bothered with the minutiae of work permits, tax or social security contributions; by the time the bureaucracy had creaked into action Din would be in the United States.
Lek, Din’s roommate, had been in England for just one month and only had a rudimentary grasp of the language. This had not prevented him from discovering all the best late night gay dives to patronise after the restaurant closed at midnight. Lek had already acquired a sugar daddy, with whom he spent the night on his evening off; for the rest of the week he was free.
Din followed eagerly in Lek’s footsteps. Never since his childhood had he been able to revel in anonymity. All his sexuality, repressed for years in the interests of power, surged out. Din was the new face in the crowd and he exploited his novelty without scruple. Naturally abstemious, his expenses were restricted to entrance fees and condoms, with half-a dozen of which he sallied forth each night. Din dumbed down his aptitude in the native language in order not to frighten off the horny bodies with feeble brains that he was chasing. Several times he politely declined the offers of older gentlemen. Din was not seeking either money or a commitment, simply an orgy of sex in the first and last opportunity that life would afford him.
While his brother was serving at tables and being served in dimly lit cellars, Nok made a short trip to Malaga, uncomfortably wedged between an obese Mancunian and a screaming child. He had not warned Oliver in advance since he wanted to observe the condition of his father unprepared. He paid off the taxi on the main road and walked a kilometre down the twisting lane until he arrived at El Castillon. He unlatched and closed the gate behind him and walked past the mango and avocado trees to the swimming pool. It was noon and the sun was taking no prisoners. Nok climbed the steps to the lower terrace and saw Oliver slumped in a deck chair under the awning with what was obviously a gin and tonic on the wall beside him.
“Hello pa. I hope you don’t mind me dropping in.”
Oliver shuddered and stared at the intruder. For an instant his face contorted with anger, before he burst into tears. Nok vaulted over the wall and put his arms around his father. Later that afternoon when Oliver had recovered his composure, Nok outlined the results of his research and explained what he wanted Oliver to do.
At first Oliver was hostile to the plan but he was slowly won over. When Nok departed the following morning he left Oliver with a spring in his step and a new purpose in life.
Din’s first action when he reached Boston was to adopt the name in his bright new European passport, David Marshall. The fact that it had arrived just a week before he left England was not ironic, but deliberate. The UK authorities had no intention of granting all Oliver’s bastards British citizenship. It was true that only Din and Nok had applied, but the Embassy was determined not to set any easy precedent. David and Nicholas Marshall obtained dual nationality not as a right, but as a reward for their academic achievements.
While he was at Oxford Din’s surname was still officially Matcha, although in private he found it simpler to call himself Marshall.
Fortunately he had been referred to as Din Matcha in The Animals and the photograph was unrecognisable. Din was confident that no one would make the connection.
After his four-month sabbatical, Din was seldom seen outside the libraries or lecture rooms. The president was seeking re-election and his opponents were digging up all the dirt they could. Poor Robert Campbell was constantly harassed by reporters and paparazzi searching for more details about his private life, which by now was practically non-existent. Din had sent him a short note informing him of his name change but suggesting that they have no further contact until after the election. Robert had no option other than to acquiesce.
With only a year at Harvard, Din was as much concerned to obtain a well-paid job in Thailand as to pass his exams. He suspected that there would be tempting offers in the USA or in Britain but he knew that if he accepted any of them he would be crucified by the Thai press that was still idolising him. For a modest subscription he was e-mailed all advertisements in the Thai media that met his criteria; he himself monitored the business pages of the quality US newspapers.
It was already March and Robert Campbell’s father was well embarked on his second term before Din saw anything suitable. A New York business consultancy was planning to open a branch in Bangkok, but was having difficulty in recruiting Thai nationals who met their standards. Din sent an e-mail with his curriculum vitae and stated that he would be available immediately after his exams in June. Two days later he was sitting in an office on the ninetieth floor of the new World Trade Center.
The vice-president who interviewed Din was called Charles Richards. He was in his late fifties with gray receding hair. A Rhodes scholar thirty years before, he spent most of the session quizzing Din about changes in Oxford. He apologised for not remembering the name of Din’s college, but Din absolved Charles’ memory; the foundation was very recent.
“To be honest, you will be overqualified for the post we are offering; you could walk into a far more senior position here in New York. In addition we shall only be able to pay you on the local salary scale; but we shall provide free accommodation and a car. Do you drive by the way?”
Din said that he had not yet obtained a licence, but did not envisage any difficulty.
“It might be a good idea for you to obtain an international driving licence while you are here, if you have the time,” Charles continued, “we may want you to make trips overseas and I am not sure that Thai licences are universally acceptable.”
Din agreed to take lessons during the short Easter vacation. Charles and he shook hands and looked forward to a long and mutually profitable association.
Since the New Year, Din and Robert had managed to meet a couple of times in Boston. In his own country Robert appeared far less outlandish and arrogant. Fences had been mended with his father, who, heartened by his electoral success, was willing to think again about Robert’s political career. In spite of the objections of his security agents, the president had decided to spend Easter on his family estate, which boasted its own small church. When Robert asked if he could invite an English friend from Oxford, his father made no connection with the now ancient scandal and raised no objection.
Robert had talked little about his family, perhaps assuming that people knew all they needed to know from the newspapers. It was therefore with some surprise that Din was introduced to an eighteen-year-old sister called Clarissa, who made an immediate pass at him. Din responded appropriately and, to Robert’s dismay, accepted Clarissa’s offer to show him the house and grounds. As she prattled on Din realised that she had suffered even more than her brother from growing up in the White House. After their tour Din was careful, with Robert’s active assistance, not to be left alone with her again.
The president and first lady were both most affable and did not probe Din’s history further back than Oxford. If his skin was darker than expected, this was tacitly attributed to some Anglo-Indian ancestor. The first rule of politics was never to ask a question if you risked being embarrassed by the answer. Din did not, however, feel at all comfortable. The knowledge that the president must be able to react instantly in the event of an international crisis was not conducive to relaxation.
Returning to Harvard, Din successfully gained both his certificate and driving licence and flew to New York to finalise arrangements with Charles Richards. They agreed that Din could spend a week with his brother in Cambridge before taking up his new post in Bangkok.
32
Richards Business Consultants had one unbreakable rule for its local staff: no involvement in politics. It was certain that no one had any idea of the relationship between David Marshall and Fah Matcha; and Din had no intention of enlightening his employers. He made one quick visit to Korat to see his mother and show her his diplomas; but he made no contact with his sister who was already on the campaign trail. The company offices were in Silom Tower; Din’s one bedroom flat was within easy walking distance and had a distant view of Lumpini Park.
There were only two American managers, neither of whom understood a word of Thai. For the first few months, Din spent most of his time accompanying them to meetings and acting as an unofficial interpreter whenever required. Back at the office, as the most senior Thai employee, he had the thankless task of trying to explain the two sides to each other.
In the evenings in his apartment he pored over Thai legal documents and was almost moved to tears by their convolution and lack of precision. It was not so much that Din’s Thai was rusty; the language was one he had never encountered. To make matters worse hundreds of technical English words had been incorporated, whose transliteration into Thai was ugly and inconsistent. How he envied the common sense of Singapore! Thai was a beautiful language and Din would be among the first on the ramparts to defend its survival; it was now being adulterated and forced into constructions for which it had never been intended. In Din’s view, the natural language would be better served if it was allowed to maintain its purity and international business was conducted in the international language.
Din was not on the electoral register and therefore did not have to concern himself about which party to vote for. When asked by his boss, he shrugged his shoulders and said he had been away for too long to form a judgement.
He spent the next three years watching his sister endure the frustrations of being a constituency MP while the New Liberal Party slowly disintegrated around her. As senior party in the coalition the Democrats held all the major cabinet posts. The leader of the NLP, nominally a deputy prime minister but without any power, kept threatening to pull his party out of the coalition, but his bluff was called each time. The country was prospering, the government was perceived as successful and all the pundits predicted that the Democrats would retain power after the next election, either alone with an absolute majority, or with whichever minor party they chose.
Din decided to test the waters and made discreet enquiries at the Democrat HQ as to the possibility of obtaining a place on their list. He made a favourable impression and Din Matcha was given the provisional number 93. There he might possibly obtain a seat if there was a landslide and the majority of those above him were given ministerial posts. Even if his company saw the list they would have no idea that Din Matcha was David Marshall. He would not have to resign until the election was called.
The affairs of Richards Business Consultants in Bangkok were also flourishing, in no little part due to Din’s expertise and industry, which was rewarded by handsome annual bonuses. These Din invested in barren plots of land on the outskirts of Korat. As a precaution, the deeds were registered in his mother’s name and she signed over the rights to her son. This was all perfectly legal and to the solicitors who handled the transactions it did not appear even slightly devious.
During these years Nok had become a frequent visitor to Amblesham. The town was only three hours drive from Cambridge and he often drove down on Friday evening and returned on Sunday afternoon. Nok had grown genuinely fond of his grandmother and he filled the place in her heart that had been abandoned by Oliver. As far as Mary knew, Nok and Din were Oliver’s only children. She assumed that they were twins and born as a result of an accident with a local girl when Oliver first visited Thailand. Of course she did not approve, but she was proud of the way Oliver had supported the pair and of their achievements. She introduced Nok to her friends without the slightest embarrassment and with only the mildest hint that there had been a marriage and divorce.
Nok told Mary as much of the truth that he thought she could understand. Oliver had enjoyed a successful ten years lecturing in Tokyo, but had suffered a severe emotional betrayal that had shattered his confidence and occasioned his retreat to Spain. There it had become apparent that he was suffering a rare but non-lethal condition, whose symptoms included premature ageing and depression. Oliver was reluctant to see former friends to such an extent that it had almost become paranoia. Nok assured Mary that Oliver still loved his mother, but wanted her to remember him as he used to be. Nevertheless, Nok did raise the possibility that the time might come when Oliver was unable to look after himself in his hermitage; perhaps he might then be persuaded to swallow his pride and return to live with his mother. Mary was thrilled by the idea.
Mary Marshall was now in her early fifties. One or two of the oldest inhabitants of Amblesham had mentioned to her that fifty or more years ago when they were children another Mary Marshall had lived in the same draughty house, but Mary dismissed this as either imagination or coincidence. Unlike her predecessor, she only made token appearances at St Mary’s and spent most of her leisure on the golf course or walking her dogs. Brutus and Shandy, the dog and bitch, were purebred labradors of stunning beauty and intelligence. If Mary sometimes thought of her late husband, she no longer ever missed his company. After Sir Andrew’s death she had ceased to use the courtesy title. It had not even occurred to Oliver to enquire whether as an adopted son he was entitled to inherit the baronetcy.
Nok was still seriously concerned that Oliver might have an accident and be unable to call for help. He had given him a mobile phone with all the latest gadgetry, which was attached to Oliver’s wrist and which would automatically send Nok an e-mail if it was completely stationary for ten minutes. It was sufficiently sensitive to distinguish between sleep and unconsciousness. Nevertheless Nok still sent his father a daily e-mail, which Oliver needed only click to acknowledge, and he telephoned him without fail at noon every Sunday. Eventually he persuaded Oliver to have a few words with his mother. Mary, after some advice from her grandson, responded as if Oliver had only been absent for a few days rather than several years. Little by little the idea of seeing his mother again seemed to Oliver less frightening and less impossible.
Nok maintained contact with Din in Bangkok and informed him in general terms of their father’s health and of Nok’s visits to Amblesham. If Din was surprised at the burgeoning relationship between grandmother and grandson, he made no comment. He supposed that even mathematicians became lonely at times. Nok had always been reticent about his relationship with a colleague; Din did not even know if Nok’s lover was still in Cambridge. He himself was having a temperate affair with an Australian who was in Bangkok on a three-year contract. The inevitable end of the liaison would fall shortly before the forthcoming general election.
33
The prime minister (and leader of the Democratic Party) was consulting party officials about the composition of the party list for the election he would call in November. Although his administration had been successful and he was confident of being returned to office, there were a number of persistent weaknesses. The most troubling were in the trade and commerce departments, where foreign firms continued to complain of incompetent officials and unconscionable delays. The party had too much dead wood at the top and the PM was determined to rejuvenate it, however much blood he left on the carpet. If he was unable to do the job now, at the height of his powers and popularity, it could never be done.
The PM glanced down the list of one hundred names. To delete the names of the dinosaurs might be too dangerous; it would be sufficient just to move them down the list. If he then was not obliged to give them a ministry they would probably resign rather than take their seats as a simple MP.
“Who is Din Matcha? Is he any relation of that firebrand from Korat? Has he served the party in any way?”
“He is a half-brother I think, Prime Minister. He has been unable to work openly for the party on account of his job with a business consultancy firm. We put him on the list because of his qualifications. He has a double first in economics from Oxford and a diploma from Harvard Business School. We thought he might be useful.”
“Good for you! I wonder why he wants to enter politics so early. He cannot have made a decent fortune yet. Perhaps it is a case of sibling rivalry. In any case if he wants to work for us I have work for him to do. Move him up to number twenty. Then move anyone under forty up ten places and everyone over sixty down ten places. I shall have another look at it again then.”
The prime minister was fifty-nine. The officials obeyed his instructions to the letter with the result that a surprised Din Macha found himself at number ten, an almost automatic springboard to a senior cabinet position.
Fah was beside herself with rage and scorn when the Democratic Party list was finally published. She telephoned Din’s office and was told that David Marshall had already resigned. Din’s boss had been angered by the deceit but consoled himself with the thought that a friend in high places was not to be sniffed at. The parting of the ways was cool, but polite.
In her frustration Fah fired off a letter to Thai Rath, which had supported her ever since the time of the “abduction from the seraglio”. She furiously accused the Democrats of preferring farang to genuine Thais. She mentioned no names, but it took little imagination to guess to whom she was referring. Fah appeared on numerous talk shows, but had difficulty explaining how Din was more farang than she was.
Din declined to be interviewed but issued a statement. This acknowledged that he had received his higher education abroad, but that he had since worked in Bangkok for four years and was now seeking to repay his debt to his parents and his people. Fah had gained the publicity, but Din had won the argument.
Unable to vent her anger on Din in person, Fah used Sunny as a substitute and was horrified when Sunny hit back. Sunny had recovered from her infatuation and now saw Fah with the eyes of a professional instead of an unrequited lover. She told Fah bluntly that she was being childish and playing into the hands of her enemies. What was her goal? Was it her personal prestige or the emancipation of women as she always claimed? What had she really achieved in four years apart from publicity? Her party was falling apart and would no longer be in government after the election. Fah would be fortunate to retain her seat. Sunny suggested that she should spend a week on a remote island without her mobile phone and seriously contemplate her future. Fah was bitter and indignant but took the advice.
Needless to say Din’s elevation provoked resentment, if not hysteria, in the ranks of the Democrats. The prime minister, however, had a firm grip on the party and no one dared to challenge openly his promotion of meritocracy over experience. After all, if the opinion polls were correct and the Democrats received an absolute majority, there would be enough jobs for everyone. Most current ministers smiled with relief at the thought of seeing the back of their fractious coalition partners. When the predictions were fulfilled and the prime minister formed a new administration, the old guard was gratified that Din Matcha was only given a junior post in the commerce department. Neither was Din disappointed, since the prime minister had given him a specific objective which would demand all his time and energy. Din wrote to his sister congratulating her on her re-election as the sole NLP MP in Korat; Fah did not return the compliment.
Mom Suwat Samnakngarn, the permanent secretary, had been a civil servant all his life and prided himself on his ability to handle incoming ministers. He certainly did not expect any trouble from this neophyte who had no political experience at all. Even before their first meeting Suwat had received the strange request for a copy of every form used by the department. This was a laborious task, but there were plenty of idle hands in the ministry and he saw no reason not to humour the young man.
When Din saw the pile of boxes he was appalled. As he leafed through the forms he discovered that only a few recent ones had been computer typeset and a substantial proportion still employed an orthography that was a century out-of-date. Thick, black and blurred, the typing was barely legible, let alone intelligible. Din was still sifting through them when Suwat entered his office.
“Good morning, minister. I see that you have received the forms you requested.”
“Good morning, Mom Suwat. Can you tell me when this was produced?” Din handed Suwat a form.
“The date will be at the end. This one is historic, from the reign of King Chulalongkorn. If I remember correctly, it may even have been drafted by His Majesty himself.”
“Perhaps you could read the opening paragraph to me?” Din asked.
Suwat looked surprised, cleaned his glasses, screwed up his eyes and began to read slowly. After a minute Din interrupted him.
“I think it is fair to say that the words do not exactly leap off the page, do they? Do you think it is any wonder that our trading partners continually complain about the extra costs and delays incurred in finding someone who can read and understand all this? When you need new copies do you just photocopy them by the way? It looks like it.”
Suwat was affronted. “No sir. All the original blocks are retained.”
“And so are the original typesetters I suppose?” Din asked sardonically.
“Only in a manner of speaking, sir. The trade is highly esteemed and tends to pass from father to son.”
“Do you remember the battle of Wapping, Mom Suwat?”
“Wapping? Do you mean Waterloo?”
Din laughed. “Not a bad comparison! The old guard charged the thin red line and was decimated. But at Wapping the line was blue. About fifty years ago in south London. It was the battle that finally broke the power of the print unions. That’s enough banter, I have already made my decision.”
“Indeed sir?” It was unheard of for a minister to take a decision that had not already been approved by his officials.
“Yes, indeed. First, all these ancient texts will be rewritten on computer. Second, they will be translated into English. Third they will be reprinted so that they can be read front to back in Thai and back to front in English. I think you understand me. I am sure you have seen Canadian documents, which do the same in French and English.”
Mom Suwat was aghast. “That’s quite impossible. The honour of the country is at stake. What would His Majesty think?”
“The prime minister has already discussed the matter with His Majesty and it met not just with royal approval but with royal enthusiasm. The honour of Thailand is unimpeachable. I shall give final approval to all the translations personally; but I should like you to select a handful of officials who have learned their English in England, or at the very least in the old Commonwealth countries or the USA. If you decide that certain forms are no longer necessary, you will meet no objection from me.”
Mom Suwat Samnakngarn left Din Macha’s office feeling humiliated and a very worried man.
34
Mom Suwat encountered more difficulty than he expected in finding officials who satisfied Din’s demand for linguistic competence, possibly because his heart was not in the search. He did all he could to present the project as a boring chore in the hope that it would grind to a halt and Din would lose interest. Din’s will was not, however, to be circumvented when he was backed by the prime minister. To gain momentum he gave an off the record briefing to the Bangkok Post which produced an abundance of congratulatory letters in its postbag. Eventually Din was provided with six bilingual men. He asked Suwat if there were no competent women; the permanent secretary regretted that there were not. Din added another item to his menu. The first task was to render the documents into modern Thai and the second to translate them into modern English.
As it was not in his interest to speed up the process, Suwat made no recommendations to discard any forms on the grounds of obsolescence. From occasional hoots of laughter in the adjacent office, Din inferred that his colleagues found certain items particularly quaint. He reviewed the progress each evening and collected the prize specimens for his weekly meeting with the permanent secretary.
“Mom Suwat, how many dispensations does the department give annually from the maximum load limit on oxcarts? And how many requests are there for licences for gamecocks? How long has cockfighting been illegal? And has the fee never been raised? I doubt if three salaeng would cover the administrative expenses these days.”
“I should also like a list of all our offices in the country.” Din asked one morning. “I want to see for myself how efficient and well-equipped they are. I know from my time in business that papers often do a circuit of Bangkok.”
“Is that really the role of a minister?” Suwat cavilled. “We have our own experts and everything is under my control. Ministers usually devote themselves to policy.”
“Well my policy is good administration. By the way the PM is very pleased with the progress being made on the forms. I showed him a few samples and he said they were almost a pleasure to read!”
As Din had suspected, the department’s employees were dotted around the capital, often occupying very expensive sites in hopelessly outmoded buildings. There was huge waste of space and a deplorable lack of IT infrastructure. Many staff were still pounding on manual typewriters. He suspected that the same was true in other departments.
Din had bought himself a small house in one of the cheaper suburbs, with easy access to parliament and his ministry. There he created what he called Din’s Diner, a supper club for like-minded MPs and junior ministers. One evening, Din broached the question of civil service accommodation and the feasibility of consolidating departments in purpose-designed buildings on cheaper land outside Bangkok.
“In my view there are several advantages. First, it should be self-financing with the sale of the properties in the city. Second, we could double or treble our efficiency overnight. We would retain only essential offices in Bangkok and they would all be on an open link to the provincial centre. Third, it would revitalise the provinces and reverse the gravitational pull of the Big Mango.”
“You’ve been abroad too long. Do you think that has never occurred to anyone before? The unions won’t buy it.” Din’s colleague from the health ministry scoffed.
“That may be so, but we are being left behind. Even India has replaced the quill pens of the British Raj. You know the old joke about the Soviet Union: the workers pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them. We are not far short of that: low pay, low skills and low performance. I have half a mind to recommend privatising the whole department.”
Din’s friends chuckled. The one whose turn it had been to bring the wine poured Din another glass.
“Now just calm down a little. You are in the first months of your first ministerial post. If you create too many waves you will just be shunted around until they find you a job for which you are totally unqualified and where the bureaucrats can run you. Did you pick up any Latin at Oxford? Festina lente. Make haste slowly.”
Din dropped the subject, but was in no mood to take the advice.
The office was already packing up for the Songkran holiday when Din’s private secretary announced that he had a personal call from Spain.
“Pa? Are you all right?” Din asked anxiously.
“No Din it’s me. Pa has had an accident.” Nok’s voice sounded faint and hesitant.
“What happened? Is he badly hurt?”
“He must have slipped on entering the pool and hit his head on the side. Because of the water turbulence it must have taken some time for the alarm to be activated. I called the police immediately, but ...”
“Oh Nok! How terrible, and how awful for you! Do you want me to fly out if I can get a seat? It’s Songkran you know.”
“Thanks Din, but there isn’t any need for that. Pa’s will gives precise instructions. He wants to be cremated and have his ashes scattered on the sea. I have made all the arrangements with the authorities here. How are you by the way? How are you enjoying the exercise of power?”
Din laughed. “More like an exercise in frustration! So far my only achievement has been to rewrite and translate all the department’s forms. But it has earned me a few good meals from the trade associations!”
Nok returned to the subject. “Could you tell the others for me? I have been out of touch for so long they have probably forgotten who I am.”
“Of course Nok. I’ll go to Korat and gather as many as I can for tham bun at the wat. Come and visit whenever you can. I’ll try to arrange an official trip to the EU in the near future. Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye.”
Din’s private secretary was hovering at the door, eager to get away.
“Is anything the matter, minister?”
“My father, he’s died in Spain. But he had had a good life. Before you go, do you have a phone number for Fah Matcha secreted away somewhere?”
“Of course, minister.” Within a minute he had produced the numbers of Sunny’s apartment, Fah’s apartment in Korat, her office in parliament and a mobile phone.
“Thanks. One of these should find her. Have a good holiday.”
Din had been planning to go sailing in Phuket. He cancelled his flight and hotel before trying Fah’s numbers without success. He left a message on her mobile phone, closed the office and wove his way back home through the streams of traffic heading out of town. He had settled down with a rare gin and tonic when the phone rang. Fah was unusually subdued.
“How very sudden. What happened?”
Din repeated the bare details he had learned from Nok.
“You are back in Korat, I assume. As MP you must know all the ropes. I think we should have a temple ceremony for as many of the family as we can muster. I am sure I can find a hotel; I don’t feel like sleeping on my mother’s settee. Okay?”
Most of OM’s children had only seen their father a couple of times in their lives. He was a mythical, almost god-like figure, but without exception all those in Korat assembled at Wat Po; Fah had also managed to contact half-a-dozen in Bangkok and Pattaya. By virtue of their public office, Din and Fah assumed the role of principal mourners. At the end of the ceremony Din embraced his sister.
“Is this just a truce or an enduring peace? I do hope the latter, as we could achieve so much more together than apart.”
Fah assented silently.
“Tremendous. I shall be in touch as soon as parliament gets back to work.”
The roads were empty when Din drove back to Bangkok. In any circumstances the loss of a father is a milestone in a man’s life. Din reflected that he owed his success so far entirely to Oliver and that he had given so little in return. It was now too late. Yet in his death Oliver had reconciled his son and daughter; their accomplishments would be his legacy.
35
Nok did not consider that he had lied to his brother, merely been very economical with the truth. He had never actually said that Oliver was dead, although he admitted that it had been his intention that Din should believe that he was. Otherwise the story was true. Oliver had lost consciousness. His left hand with the watch-alarm had fallen in the pool by one of the inlets of the filter plant. Until the filter stopped, the flow of water kept the alarm in motion.
Nok had been able to alert the local police in less than an hour since the accident. The police found an old man, unconscious but still alive. Oliver was taken to hospital in Malaga where Nok found him later that night sleeping peacefully. The police had located Oliver’s keys, locked El Castillon and left the keys with the ward sister. The sister left Nok in no doubt what she felt about leaving an old man in his eighties living all on his own far from help. Nok excused himself by saying that his father was very stubborn and that for several years his aunt had been begging her brother to coming and live with her in England. This solution was now unavoidable. Nok took a taxi to the farmhouse and spent a restless night in his father’s bed.
Careless as he was in many matters, Oliver had maintained comprehensive medical insurance cover. Since his condition was still a medical secret he had no problems in obtaining a policy. Repatriation by air ambulance was included and the insurers raised no objections. The following morning Nok found Oliver awake, but confused and unable to speak.
Nok whispered “Goodbye Oliver”, kissed him, whispered, “hello Oliver” and kissed him again.
A brain scan had revealed only superficial damage and the doctor saw no reason why Oliver should not take the short flight to England. The air ambulance would, of course, include a paramedic. The service was impeccable. Nok and Oliver were met by an ordinary ambulance at Luton airport and driven to Amblesham. Mary Marshall hugged Oliver and covered him with kisses. Oliver responded in the only way he could, by crying.
No mother ever lavished as much love on a baby son as Mary Marshall did on Oliver. Nok had tried to explain what had happened and what was happening, but Mary did not understand and did not care. All that mattered was that her son had returned to his mother. As she cradled his innocent head, she thought back to the baby she had found under the weeping willow at the bottom of her family’s garden in Bray. Was this the same person, who now looked twenty years older than she did? Mary dismissed the question as unfathomable and unimportant. The needs of the two were the same, the love that only she could give.
Din was staring out of his office window watching a thunderstorm turn the side roads into rivulets as the water poured relentlessly off the raised motorways. Fah was sitting in an armchair drinking coffee. Din turned back to face her.
“You have had tremendous success at the local level. Nobody denies that. Your women’s co-operatives export all over the world. Your empowerment of women has caused a marked reduction in the HIV transmission rate. In villages where most of the men have disappeared, women have shown that they can govern without corruption. No one calls them the hind legs of an elephant any more. Yet where power really lies the situation had not changed in twenty years. The proportion of women MPs is just as low and so is the proportion of senior civil servants. I have tried to promote women here, but am constantly told that ministers have no right to interfere in staffing matters. Without legislation my hands are tied.”
“So what are you suggesting? Not some quota like they have for cripples I hope! You know how useless that is. Bosses simply send their employees for a medical and have them registered if they have an ingrowing toenail.”
“That remark is as ignorant as it is offensive. The policy is proving very effective in this department. I was permitted to insist on a few ramps and accessible toilets, but these buildings are intractable. It is another argument for a new purpose-designed ministry. Korat would be a perfect location don’t you think?”
“You have been too sensitised by the west and forgotten your karma.” Fah retorted; but she had been intrigued by Din’s final comment. The establishment of a ministry in Korat would be excellent news for her constituents. She continued before Din could react.
“Is the ministry really thinking of moving? What about the unions?”
“The ministry as such is ruled by inertia, as you know, and the unions oppose everything. I have simply circulated my ideas among my colleagues, where they have gained some sympathy. A campaign by a constituency MP might stiffen a few backbones.
“But back to the main point. I do not think that even you would suggest that employers would enforce sex changes in order to obviate a quota. The process will, of course, be slow. My initial suggestion is that at least fifty percent of those interviewed for posts at level four or above should be women. I do not think you could object to that. It will then be up to the women to prove their worth. In my opinion there is no lack of talent, only of opportunity.”
Fah was mellowing, since she realised that her brother’s proposal made sense.
“Very well. I shall raise the idea at our caucus meeting and let you know.”
Din smiled at the ease with which someone who derided western values so easily fell into American jargon.
In the autumn reshuffle Din was moved to the prime minister’s office. Although not technically a promotion, it afforded him first hand experience of the inner circles of government. He was a glorified aide-de-camp cum troubleshooter and had specific responsibilities for liaising with parliament over legislation. Fah Matcha had raised in debate Din’s proposal for civil service selection procedures and the PM had been attracted by the idea and asked for a study to be undertaken. Although the conclusion of the officials’ report was that the suggestion would be cumbersome and counterproductive, the PM was unimpressed with their logic and instructed the government lawyers to draft a short bill. In his new role, it fell to Din to steer the bill through parliament and the senate.
Objectively the success was minor, but coming so soon after his victory in the battle of the forms the Affirmative Action (Civil Service) Act confirmed Din’s reputation as the rising star in the party. Some people even began to speak of him as the prime minister’s protege, for whom no heights were insurmountable. Of equal surprise was the conversion of Din’s sister from firebrand to pragmatist. A few unkind colleagues were heard making references to “The Taming of the Shrew”.
The culmination of Din’s conquest occurred when Fah attended the new year festivities in her constituency. The chairwoman of her constituency party informed her that members saw no future in the New Liberal Party. They had joined up because of Fah rather than any party devotion. Since Fah was co-operating so well with her brother in government, the chairwoman wondered whether Fah would consider changing her allegiance to the Democrats.
At first Fah was appalled by the thought of betraying her principles, until she realised that her principles had nothing to do with the New Liberal Party. They had used her and then had failed to exploit the victories she had won for them. Parliamentary rules did not allow her to change party immediately; but if she resigned shortly before the next election she would be able to stand as a Democrat. The chairwoman agreed to the plan and said she would approach her Democrat counterpart. Fah still enjoyed overwhelming popularity in Korat and she was sure that she could secure agreement. No announcement was made; but when neither party made the slightest attempt to select a prospective candidate, political commentators were in no doubt how the land lay.
36
Can you step into the same river twice? Or
even once? Were the oaks and pines that shaded Oliver Marshall the same
trees that once shaded Oliver Trent? How many generations of frogs had
lived and died in the pond that he had once so exultantly cleaned? It
is a wise frog that knows its own father. And it is a wise mother who
loves her own son. Mary Marshall was not clever. Her wisdom rose from
her heart, not from her brain. It was an age-old wisdom passed from
mother to daughter since the springs of time. She was a woman of few
words, but she never stopped to talking to Oliver whenever he was
awake. Oliver Marshall responded rapidly to true love, whereas Oliver
Trent in his time had struggled in confusion under the pecking of a
false, and ultimately deceitful, charity. Oliver passed for Mary’s brother, who had lived and worked abroad all his life. Since no one knew anything about Mary’s family, there were no grounds for suspicion; if they had once known, people had forgotten that Mary had a son. Nok maintained his regular visits and Mary persuaded him to take up golf; the great mathematician experienced the frustrations of the practical applications of his art. The three of them would meander contentedly along the valleys and up and down the heather-clad hills of the links. Mary and Oliver were innocent and happy; and Nok shouldered the burden of his knowledge and his guilt phlegmatically.
Mary was no letter writer and it was Nok who kept Din informed of Mary’s health and handicap and his own, so far unsuccessful, efforts to obtain one. Mary probably assumed that Din knew his father was living with her; but it was a question of no immediate relevance.
After a year in the prime minister’s office, Din Matcha was promoted to a senior cabinet post responsible for trade and industry; his former bailiwick in commerce was a small sector of his new empire. The main issue he faced – the perennial issue – was trade agreements with the European Union. Progress was always a matter of two steps forward, one step back. Every six months, or so it seemed, the EU discovered a new unpronounceable chemical in Thai chicken or shrimps, which provided the excuse to protect their home markets. The quota systems and tariff preferences were generated by a computer in Brussels. No one in Thailand had a clue on what data or assumptions the calculations were based.
Early in his tenure of office, Din personally led a delegation to Brussels. At the end of the first day of negotiations he was in despair and put a call through to Trinity College Cambridge.
“Could I speak to Dr Nicholas Marshall please?”
“Certainly sir. Who is calling?”
“His brother, David.”
“Din, is that you? What a surprise! Where are you?”
“I’m in Brussels, Nok, and I need your help. The Eurocrats are running rings around my team. Their computer seems programmed always to put Thailand at a disadvantage. As it all seems higher mathematics to me I wonder if I could co-opt you onto our team.”
“I would be delighted. It would be a real pleasure. I have long been deeply sceptical about the quality of the scientific input to the EU colossus. To examine it at first hand will be a privilege. I’ll get on the first flight in the morning. Just give me the address for the taxi.”
In the morning Din requested a short adjournment to await the arrival of a new member of the team, who he was sure would be able to assist them in their deliberations. The EU officials were supremely confident and had no reason for worry when the newcomer was simply introduced as “my brother, Nok Matcha”.
“My brother has my full authority, gentlemen. For myself I intend to enjoy the rare autumn sunshine and a cup of coffee in La Grande Place. I shall return at noon for lunch.”
It was a gamble, but except for a miracle the cause was already lost. Din was convinced of his brother’s genius, but was unsure whether Brussels might prove too much like a golf course. He need not have worried. When he returned he found the Eurocrats looking shell-shocked, his officials bewildered but smiling and Nok as impassive as he had been two hours earlier.
“Is everyone ready for lunch?” Din asked.
“I am afraid our European colleagues are unable to join us. They would like to take further instructions back at HQ. We have agreed to meet here again at 3.00pm.”
Over lunch, Nok explained how he had extracted as much as he could about the computer programme and had inferred that there was a number of serious errors.
“Fortunately, the person who was in charge of writing the programme is here in Brussels. Even more fortunately, at least for me, he was one of my less intelligent pupils. The name Nok Matcha will mean nothing to him, so he will be in for a little surprise.”
Alexander Fortescue was six foot tall, in his late twenties and sporting an unseasonable tan and shoulder length brown hair. “A pretty boy gone to seed” was Din’s immediate impression.
“What’s all this nonsense?” he demanded, without even acknowledging the presence of the Thai trade secretary.
“Rather a lot of nonsense in my opinion, Alexander.”
“My God! What are you doing here Dr Marshall?”
“I happen to be a Thai citizen called Nok Matcha and am the brother of Din Matcha, our secretary of state for trade and industry. Din, may I present my former pupil Alexander Fortescue?
“Well Alexander what would you prefer? Perhaps it would be better if just the two of us had a little talk.”
With no wish to be humiliated in front of his subordinates, Alexander immediately agreed. Din and his team boarded the night flight to Bangkok with a very satisfactory agreement in their briefcases.
Sunny had been sadder than any of Oliver’s children at the news of his death; in her dreams she still often saw herself flying through the air into the arms of her angel. The transformation of Fah was, however, more than adequate compensation.
Settled in spirit, Fah was at last willing to settle in acknowledged partnership with the woman who had always loved her. Sunny now accompanied Fah on her weekend visits to Korat and soon won the hearts of the locals, despite her posh Bangkok accent. Fah had never used more than a fraction of her parliamentary allowances and was easily able to match Sunny’s modest salary at the Displaced Persons Unit. For her part, Sunny was beginning to suffer from compassion fatigue and jumped at the opportunity for a change when Fah offered her the post of personal assistant. She and her lover would now be inseparable.
It would be unkind to characterise Fah’s modus operandi as slapdash. The truth was, however, that there were so many windmills at which she tilted her lance that it was a matter of chance whether anyone followed in her wake to reap the benefits. This all now changed. Sunny catalogued and analysed all the grievances and complaints that Fah received, not only from Korat but from all over the country. Fah’s speeches were listened to not only for their wonted oratory but for their wealth of corroborated information and perspicacity. Fah referred to Sunny as her alter ego and Sunny, although still by nature shy, relished the recognition. Fah’s intention to jump ship was an open secret and there were voices urging her to join the party list and bequeath her constituency to her partner. Sunny was more than content as she was and argued successfully that she did not yet have enough political experience. Fah and Sunny agreed that they would reconsider the idea at the subsequent election, in five years time.
37
Some naïve pundits believed that a corollary of the prime minister’s advancement of youth would be his own resignation as party leader before the next election. This thinking was very shallow. The PM had no intention of permitting any of his immediate subordinates to step into his shoes. Before he left the scene he would have excised all the dead wood. If the leadership of the party jumped more than a generation, so much the better. In concrete terms he knew it was too soon to expect conference delegates to elect Din Matcha. The PM was determined to remain at the helm until he was sure they would make the correct choice.
For the fourth and final year of the parliament, the PM promoted Din to foreign secretary. A few of his colleagues were resentful but the majority recognised that it was deserved recognition for his achievements at trade and industry. Before Din left that department he had obtained the approval of the PM to appoint Dr Nicholas Marshall as honorary consultant to the Thai Ambassador to the European Union. The PM was astounded to learn that Dr Marshall was Din’s brother.
“I thought there were only two squabbling siblings in your family! Now you present me with a Cambridge lecturer! Have you any other secrets up your sleeve?”
“Just a few. Not more than a hundred.” Both men laughed.
With the EU in safe hands, Din turned his attention to the USA. Robert Campbell’s father had retired to the lecture circuit after two terms as president and Robert himself, free from his father’s shadow, was establishing his own reputation as a congressman. The White House, Senate and House of Representatives were all in the hands of Robert’s party, so Din’s old friendship might prove a significant advantage.
In the event, Robert Campbell did him proud. On Din’s first evening in Washington DC, Robert hired a hotel ballroom and persuaded his father to act as co-host. The lure of a free meeting with the former president ensured that all the key players from the Hill attended. The secretary of state was among the first to arrive and immediately put his arm around Din’s shoulders and drew him aside for a private conversation. Speeches of welcome from the two hosts were followed by the secretary of state who emphasised the strategic importance of Thailand, both commercially and militarily, to the United States. In his reply, Din astonished his audience with his eloquence and his historical perspective. As he finished speaking the doors opened and the incumbent president strode into the room, embraced his predecessor and shook hands with Din.
“You’ll come to the White House tomorrow evening won’t you when you’ve finished at State?”
“Of course, Mr President. It will be a great honour.”
The president slapped Din on the shoulder and exited as dramatically as he had entered, leaving the assembled politicians marvelling at the spell this foreigner from a little known and far off country had been able to weave over the most powerful man on the planet.
The atmosphere at the state department was friendly but serious. The secretary of state outlined what he wanted and why. China’s GDP had outstripped that of Japan and was rivalling that of the United States. The consequent influence of China on the South East Asian region was a growing concern. Thailand was the dominant economy, but the US was worried that even Thailand was becoming too dependent on its giant neighbour to the north. At present, China was concentrating on the development of its rural western provinces. Intelligence suggested that the next step would be the economic colonialisation of Laos, and possibly northern Burma. The question of Cambodia was less clear since China needed to maintain friendly relations with Vietnam.
In order to achieve its goals it would be to China’s advantage to cripple Thailand, at least temporarily. The CIA had obtained copies of contingency plans to flood northern Thailand with cheap food and other basic products down the Mekong river, while all imports would cease. By the time Thailand had even protested to the World Trade Organisation, the damage would have been done. In order to strengthen Thailand’s ability to withstand this economic sabotage, the United States was prepared to give Thailand unique trade preferences in order to shift its focus away from China to America. It would also, through various agencies, provide additional funding through Thailand to assist the three buffer countries to establish effective democratic institutions. The source of the funds would remain deliberately obscure.
The United States had been thinking along these lines for several years, but had not until now had sufficient confidence that Thailand would be a reliable partner. They respected Thailand’s prime minister, but not all those tainted by corruption who had been in the top posts in his first administration. Din’s appointment had made all the difference. The president himself had decided that he was a man he could trust and do business with.
Din left his officials at the state department and returned to the Thai embassy to catch up on some sleep before his meeting with the president. The ambassador’s limousine delivered him to the White House at the appointed hour and Din reflected how much more sumptuous it was than the official car of a mere foreign secretary. The president had another surprise for him when he said that it was his hope to visit Bangkok to sign the formal agreement himself; and in a departure from protocol he himself introduced Din to the press corps. Accustomed to Asian visitors whose English was limited to hello and goodbye, the most hard-nosed journalists in the world collapsed in laughter when he switched from New England English to a caricature Oxford accent in reply to the pedantic reporter from the BBC.
Din’s picture was in all the morning papers; and travel agents reported a surge of enquiries about holidays in Thailand. At the embassy there was a telegram of congratulations from the prime minister.
Four months later, at Dom Muang military airport, Din Matcha and the finance minister flanked the prime minister, who was standing two paces behind His Majesty the King, as the president of the United States and the first lady descended the steps from Air Force One. Din was the last to shake the president’s hand and as he did so the president turned to his wife and said in a stage whisper “This is the young man I told you about, the future of his country.” Din was acutely embarrassed and the finance minister looked furious. On the other hand the prime minister appeared unmoved, while His Majesty pretended not to hear. At the state banquet that evening the first lady was seated between the King and his foreign secretary.
Later, as the door closed behind them in their suite at the US embassy, the first lady cooed into her husband’s ear.
“You could do with a handsome and intelligent person like that in your own cabinet.”
The president laughed. “I thought you would like him! But for the moment he is more use to me in Thailand. By the way, this is something for your ears only. That young man also has a legitimate British passport in the name of David Marshall. I think it would be most unfortunate if anyone in Thailand found this out.”
“And does he know that you know?”
“Not yet. He does not need to know that we know until we need him to know that we know.”
“Do stop talking like Peter Ustinov and come to bed, darling.”
38
From the day that Oliver Marshall returned to Amblesham by ambulance, Nok took weekly measurements of his father’s height, weight and blood pressure and a photograph, with automatic dating, of him clad only in underpants. After five years Nok considered the evidence that Oliver was growing younger to be irrefutable, but he was unwilling to publicise the evidence until Oliver himself understood and consented. Nourished by his mother’s love, Oliver already had the reading and writing skills of an eight year old, but his capacity for abstract thought was far more developed. He enjoyed the mathematical puzzles with which Nok tested him and shared his son’s fascination with the parallel world in which chess pieces lived. Before long, Nok was having difficulty in holding Oliver to a draw with just the handicap of a single knight.
Gently, over time, Nok explained to Oliver that he was a very special person. Like all children Oliver at first believed that all adults were changeless, that they always had been and always would be exactly the same forever. Recently, however, one of Mary’s labradors had aged rapidly before Oliver’s eyes and had died; Nok assured Oliver that this was not an inexplicable disaster, but was the natural order of all living things. Friends of Mary’s sometimes brought their children round to visit and Nok pointed out that they were growing taller and heavier by the month.
“What about me Nok? You take my height and weight every week.” Oliver asked.
“Come and see on the computer.”
Nok produced split screen graphs, which showed a very small increase in height over the years, but a significant increase in weight.
“So am I growing like those children? It doesn’t feel the same.”
“No Oliver, you are not the same. You see your face everyday in the mirror when you shave, but I don’t suppose you have ever noticed any difference. Now look at these photographs.”
Nok displayed the first picture and Oliver looked appalled. The face was gaunt and the ribs were clearly visible.
“Who on earth is that old man?”
“Watch and see.”
Nok started a slide show and sat beside Oliver with his arm around him. By the time the final picture remained staring at them from the screen, Oliver was relaxed but even more bewildered.
“Are all those pictures really of me? Am I growing younger?”
“Yes Oliver, you are. You are very wise. There is much I have to tell you, but I shall wait until you are ready. When you are ready you will ask the right questions and I shall tell you the truth.”
Din Matcha retained his post of foreign secretary after the Democrats’ record third straight victory in the general election. US investment was already flowing unobtrusively into the country, while at the same time US markets were thrown open to surplus Thai food products at a minimal tariff. In the United States some food producers grumbled, but their complaints were outweighed by the scramble of manufacturers to stake their claim in a politically stable and expanding market. In Thailand everyone was happy as well-paid jobs became available and the economy surged forward without any apparent inflation. The finance minister naturally took all the credit.
As intended, the economic wealth spread across the borders to Burma, Laos and Cambodia, to the satisfaction of their peoples, if not entirely of the ruling elites. At meetings of ASEAN, Din adopted the self-effacing demeanour appropriate to a comparative newcomer, and allayed fears that Thailand had anything but the interest of all her partners at heart. The Republic of China was the most suspicious, which made Din believe that the analysis of the US government might indeed be correct. He assured his counterpart that Thailand would continue to supply all the food that the southwest provinces required. He was convinced that trade along the Mekong would continue to increase to the advantage of all the riparian states.
In the autumn reshuffle the finance minister received the rude shock of being promoted to the vacuous post of deputy prime minister and seeing Din Matcha installed in his place. His blustering outburst availed him naught and the PM suggested that, if he preferred, he could leave the government altogether. Since that would be the end of his political career, he swallowed his pride and prepared to do all he could behind the scenes to thwart his upstart successor.
Din’s promotion was welcomed by the other economic ministers and by the civil servants, who were well aware that the true architect of the current boom was the former foreign secretary. The greatest danger now was overheating and it was a relief to have a finance minister who knew his subject.
The property sector was the biggest danger, as in 1997. In a surprising, and apparently illiberal, move Din required all loans for construction projects which exceeded one billion baht to be referred to the Bank of Thailand. The modest increase in interest rates a few months later was also assumed to have had the nod of the minister. The last thing Din wanted was a currency crisis in a couple of years time.
Much of Thailand’s economy was new and vibrant; but much was still antiquated and dominated by the social elite who had maintained their wealth and position by the simple expedient of defaulting on their loans. Privatisation had stuttered on and off for thirty or more years, but the state and its favoured servants still had their sticky fingers in every pie. Din had already attained one important objective, a secure market for the country’s farmers; his second was to create an ambiance where young, well-educated entrepreneurs could flourish. Din made many enemies and was never invited to preside at society weddings. The armed forces were outraged at his attacks on their privileges; but with the prime minister, who also held the defence portfolio, on his side, Din was slowly able to whittle them down. Complete liberalisation of television was the greatest test and triumph. The army was told that it had a single function: the defence of the nation. Hundreds of generals resigned from their inactive posts in protest.
As chairwoman of the public accounts committee, Fah Matcha was one of the most powerful members of parliament. She had been appointed while her brother was still foreign secretary and when Din moved to the finance ministry there was some murmuring that she should resign. When Fah made it abundantly clear that her brother could expect no favours from her, the other members of the committee leaned back in their chairs and looked forward to the fireworks.
As Fah’s personal assistant Sunny enjoyed almost equal auctoritas since even many MPs were too frightened of Fah’s savage tongue to approach her direct. Except for one circumstance, Sunny’s life was perfect. She was beside the woman she loved and doing work that was both fascinating and worthwhile. Only her dreams marred her happiness.
Sunny had not dreamed of being caught by her angel for several years until the shock of the news of Oliver’s death resuscitated the nightmares. They only lasted a few weeks, but now, almost ten years later, they had begun to recur. Only now, sometimes, she was the person who caught Oliver. Finally she plucked up courage to tell Fah what she wanted to do.
“I think Oliver needs me. I must go to Europe.”
“But that’s ridiculous, darling, he’s been dead for years.”
“Who told you he died?”
“Din, of course.”
“And who told Din?”
“Nok, of course.”
“Did you ever question Nok yourself?”
“No, why ever should I have? We have hardly spoken in our entire lives. I doubt if he can even speak Thai any more.”
“You never forget your mother tongue! I want to speak to him. Do you have his number?”
“No. But you can find it easily enough. Go to the Cambridge web site. He calls himself Nicholas Marshall. I expect he is a professor by now.”
Sunny was hurt by Fah’s tone, and Fah herself could not explain why she felt so angry at the mention of Nok. She had refused her father’s offer of help and Nok had been the beneficiary in her place; but to be jealous now was absurd. Perhaps she just resented that Nok had cut himself off from his mother country and now passed, perfectly legally, for an Englishman.
Sunny found Dr Marshall’s e-mail address and decided it would be easier to write than to speak.
She poured out her feelings in Thai and then added in English (just in case the computer garbled the message), “I dream of Oliver every night. I think he needs me. Please can I come and see you to hear how he died?
The following morning she received a reply to say that an open ticket was awaiting her at the Thai International office at Parliament House.
39
Sunny had no difficulty recognising Nok in the arrivals hall at Heathrow; he was still a slightly slimmer version of Din. Nok, however, was awestruck at the sight of the power dressed matron who bore no resemblance to the shy young woman he had last seen over twenty years before. He was even more taken aback when Sunny threw her arms around him instead of offering a conventional wai.
“Thank you so much. I know it sounds stupid after all these years, but I just had to see you. I feel somehow that Oliver is close to you.”
Nok was silent until they were safely on the M4. Sunny had no idea of where Cambridge was and simply assumed that that was where they were heading.
“I am very glad that you are here as I believe you can be a great help to Fah and Din and all my myriad brothers and sisters.”
“How? And what about Oliver?” Sunny persisted.
“All in good time. You are one of only a handful of people outside my family who knows most of the story. Indeed you are now one of the family. You know that roughly half of us have an abnormality that causes us to age faster. I believe that I have discovered the precise mechanism; but I have not yet published my findings. The only person I have confided in is Darunpan, the Thai doctor who is working in Australia. Perhaps you remember him?”
“Of course, he helped me to find Oliver. Yes, I know that Fah is looking older than me already, and I am worried about the future. But how can I help? And what about Oliver?” Sunny repeated. “Since I have been in England I have felt even closer to him. How exactly did he die?”
After ten miles on the M25 Nok had turned off onto country roads in the affluent heart of England. It had started to rain and Nok used fiddling with the windscreen wipers as an excuse to delay his answer.
“I told Din that our father had fallen by the swimming pool and hit his head. I never actually stated that Oliver had died. His life had ended; but he was not dead.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean? Has he been in a coma all these years?”
“Not exactly. He has no memory of his life before his accident and I have not yet told him that he had one. Otherwise he is alive and well and living with his adopted mother, who is a lovely woman in her late sixties. It is hard to think of her as my grandmother, but she would only have been about thirty-five when we were all conceived.”
The rain was becoming heavier and Nok parked the car in a lay-by. He turned towards Sunny and put his arm around her shoulders.
“The important thing, and this is something that Oliver already knows, is that he is growing younger.”
Sunny screamed and tried to open the car door, but it was locked and she could not find the release.
“Now Sunny, please relax and calm yourself. You said you kept dreaming that Oliver needed you. You were right. It is only another twenty minutes to Amblesham. Are you really going to turn your back on him now?”
Sunny began to breathe more slowly.
“But it is impossible. It’s almost obscene.”
“I agree. It is an obscene trick of nature. But it is not impossible. I have discovered how the trick is played. Above all I have the evidence of my own eyes.”
This was not the time for Nok to mention Oliver Trent, or even to spell out the implications for himself and his siblings.
“When you see him you will see exactly what you would expect after an absence of twenty years. At first you will think I have made up the whole story. But Oliver will not recognise you and you must not let this upset you. The time has come for Oliver to learn about his past. How this was communicated to you in your dreams, I do not know. I am sure that your love for him will be as strong as ever and that you have been sent like an angel to help him.”
“That is exactly what I dreamed!” Sunny exclaimed. “My dreams changed from him being my angel and catching me to my being the angel and catching him. Start the car! Let’s go!”
Nok introduced Sunny as an old friend from Thailand and it was all Sunny could do to restrain herself from bursting into tears and falling into Oliver’s arms. She had agreed with Nok that the best approach would be to tell Oliver her story, with a natural emphasis on the mysterious stranger who had saved her life and rediscovered her in a children’s home years later. Oliver, with all the curiosity and persistence of a child, kept on demanding that Sunny repeat the episode of the accident and asked so many details about her saviour’s appearance that she was forced to extemporise. She lied when she said that she did not know his full name, only his nickname, OM.
“How awful it must be to lose both one’s parents in such a tragedy! I don’t know my real parents. Mary adopted me you know. I have never been outside Amblesham. Is Thailand very far away? Is it hot or cold? Does it rain as much as it does here? How long are you going to stay? I do love your stories. What a funny name OM! Do you know that those are my initials, Oliver Marshall?”
Sunny took delight in answering Oliver’s questions, although the effort of speaking English so much was exhausting and she often had to solicit Nok’s help when he came down at the weekend. Her only regret was that Nok would not allow her to tell Fah that her father was alive. Nok explained that this was something he had to do himself and would need careful preparation. The worst scenario for Oliver was for a garbled story to leak out and to have hordes of journalists and photographers camped on his doorstep. Sunny reluctantly agreed and merely told Fah how wonderful her grandmother was and how soothing it was to talk to her about Oliver’s childhood. She thought she would stay for two months, returning to Thailand in time for Songkran.
One weekend, Sunny told Nok that Oliver was pestering her to explain why OM had lost touch with her after going to work in Japan. Oliver did not understand how he could be so cruel. Nok decided that the time had come to take up his part of the story.
“You remember, Oliver, that I told you how babies are made?”
Oliver blushed and muttered, “Of course!”
“Well it is also possible to take sperm from a man and eggs from a woman and combine them in a test tube before planting them back inside the women’s womb. This is done quite often when a couple has difficulty conceiving naturally.
“You remember that OM was still a teenager when he met Sunny for the first time in Pattaya? Well, a few days later he was drugged in a bar and kidnapped.”
“How terrible! Why didn’t you tell me this Sunny?”
“I didn’t know, darling, until much much later. It was not part of my story.”
“But what happened. Was he hurt? He can’t have been killed or you would never have seen him again.” Oliver was beginning to get agitated.
Nok answered quickly.
“He was released after about a month completely unharmed. They removed sperm from him twice a day in order to mix it with the eggs of Thai women.”
Oliver blushed an even deeper hue. “You mean? But why on earth?”
“A criminal American man wanted to produce designer children to work in the entertainment business.” Nok continued vaguely. “Fortunately he was trapped soon after the children were born.”
“And the children? How many were there? What happened to them?” Oliver’s excitement had overcome his embarrassment. Nok took a deep breath.
“There were a hundred. All are still alive except for one boy who was killed in a road accident. I am one of the children and Sunny’s best friend is another.”
Oliver gazed from one to the other. He sensed that this all had something to do with him, but had no idea what.
“And what happened to OM?”
“He lectured in Japan for several years, but he grew unhappy there. He discovered that he had a disease, which caused him to age faster than normal. He had plenty of money and retired to a house in Spain, which he had inherited from a godfather.”
“How did you get to know him? Did you visit him there? You are keeping something from me!”
“Yes. OM kept in touch with his children and paid for me to go to Cambridge University, where I have stayed ever since. OM became very depressed about his disease, especially since he knew that he had passed it on to over half his children, including myself. I may look older than Sunny, but if I can say so without being impolite, she is actually about three years older than me.”
“So what happened? Did he kill himself?” Oliver asked fearfully.
“He thought about it a lot. But I persuaded him not to. I hope he will forgive me.”
“Why do you say that? Did he die naturally or where is he now?” Oliver was becoming tense with anxiety.
“OM did not die. He had an accident and lost his memory. I brought him to England to live with his mother.”
Nok glanced at Sunny and she moved close to Oliver and held him in her arms.
“Under his mother’s care he recovered and slowly started growing younger. You, Oliver, are my father. OM is and was Oliver Marshall.”
40
Nok was feeling very pleased with himself. After brief hysterics, which were followed by a splitting headache, Oliver had apparently accepted the extraordinary story he had been told and had badgered Nok and Sunny for more details of his past life.
Of broader significance, he had just received confirmation of his appointment as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a fitting culmination to his career and one that made him at least the equal of his more dominant brother.
His inaugural lecture was already written, but it was only fair to inform his siblings in advance. He decided to hire the ballroom of the Korat Hilton for a family celebration. With Din’s help there was no problem in shifting the previous bookings elsewhere. For himself, he reserved the presidential suite; it was the least his new eminence deserved. He did not, of course, reveal to Thailand’s finance minister his ulterior motive, nor the fact that he would be bringing a surprise guest. Nok deliberately flew to Bangkok a day earlier than he had told Din in order to avoid meeting him at the airport. Sunny took a taxi to Fah’s city apartment, while Nok and Oliver headed northeast in a limousine.
From his window Nok had a panoramic view of Korat. On the city’s outskirts he could see vast construction works, which, he was told the next day, were new government departments scheduled to move out of Bangkok the following year. What Nok did not know was that Din’s mother had made a fortune out of the sale of her land holdings. This was not altogether surprising since Din’s mother herself was totally unaware of her enrichment.
The following morning Nok phoned his brother’s office with the news of his premature arrival and asked if the minister could honour him with a private visit at his Hilton suite. Din was in a meeting, but phoned back within an hour.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had changed your flights? I had arranged a VIP reception at the airport with press interviews for the return of the celebrated son.” Din was definitely annoyed.
“That was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Unlike you I do not spend my time flying around the world and I knew that I would be exhausted. If I have to have my photograph taken I want to be shaven and uncrumpled. I have quite recovered now and I should like to have a private chat with you before all the clan assembles.”
Din was not wholly mollified, but agreed to be at the Hilton at 7.00pm.
Sunny and Fah were cuddling up together in bed. It was all Sunny could do to stay awake, but she wanted to get the crisis over with at once.
“Darling, I have been lying to you. Will you promise to forgive me?”
“How can I promise before I know? What have you been up to? Sleeping with my grandmother?”
Sunny could not help laughing as she instinctively knew that Fah trusted her and was sure that any deceit was not of Sunny’s making.
“No darling. She is a lovely lady and we are the greatest friends. It would be truer to say that we are both in love with the same person.”
“Now I am totally confused. With whom? With Nok?”
Sunny laughed again and hugged her lover more tightly.
“This is the real shock. Mary loves her son and I love your father.”
Fah jerked away. “But he died years ago! Have you formed some necrophilia cult?”
“Oliver Marshall is not dead. He flew into Bangkok with Nok and me and is staying with Nok in Korat.”
Fah swung her legs onto the floor, walked to a cabinet and filled two glasses of whisky.
“No thank you. You know I don’t drink.”
“Well you are going to drink now in the hope it acts as a truth drug!”
Fah stood over Sunny as she took a mouthful of scotch and choked. Within seconds the unaccustomed liquor was burning her throat her stomach and her brain.
“OK. Tell me the real truth.”
Sunny began to cry.
“Please don’t be angry with me. Put your questions to Nok, because I don’t understand anything. When I arrived at Mary’s house, Nok introduced me to a man who looked exactly as I expected Oliver to look after all these years. He did not recognise me, but we became great friends. He has the mind of an inquisitive child. Nok explained that your father had not died in Spain, but simply lost his memory. Since then he has been growing younger. Please don’t blame me!”
Sunny’s tears became a flood and Fah’s anger evaporated. She drained her whisky and the remains of Sunny’s.
“Let’s sleep now. My brother will have plenty of explaining to do in the morning.”
The next day, however, she was informed that Dr Marshall was taking no calls. Fah’s message would be passed to him as soon as he contacted the switchboard or reception. Nok had asked Sunny not to say anything to her partner, but he was aware of the risk. On the other hand he was certain that Fah would not contact Din before speaking to him. It would be too humiliating to admit that Din might know something that she didn’t.
By the time he was ushered into the presidential suite by the private elevator, Din had forgotten his annoyance over the cancelled press conference. He embraced his brother warmly.
“When may I start calling you professor officially?” he beamed.
“In about a month. I shall give my inaugural lecture in June, just before the May Balls.” They both laughed at the incongruity.
“And what will be the subject? Will I understand a word of it? Perhaps I could be invited?”
“Well actually that is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. But before I start do tell me if those buildings arising in the distance are part of the plan you once conceived for decentralisation of government offices.”
“You have hit the nail on the head. It took a long time, but eventually I wore down the opposition.”
Nok nodded sagely. “I suppose politics is just college life writ large. You cannot imagine the number of committee meetings it takes to decide the planting of a tree. The fate of the so-called Newton’s Apple Tree must have wasted months of the most distinguished brainpower in the country.
“But back to my lecture. Do you remember that research Professor Griffiths instigated into our chromosomes after you had had that kidney operation?”
“Yes, of course. But you stamped on it as I recall.”
“Precisely. The old man was very irate, but I am happy to say that he has taken his fury with him to the crematorium. I am now the sole possessor of the evidence.”
“Well that’s a relief, unless …” Din broke off as the truth dawned. “You don’t mean to publish now! You can’t!”
“Well, I think I can. But of course I wanted to discuss it all with you first and then with the rest of the brethren. Even if I do not publish, there are facts that you all need to know.”
“Well, spit them out!” Din was becoming frightened.
“Not so fast. Let me start with what you know already. We share a trisomy that is causing us to age at a faster rate. We inherited it from our father, Oliver Marshall. Agreed so far?”
Din nodded.
“And do you remember that my mathematical model of the activity of the genes indicated that their action might be reversed? That is roughly where I left it with Griffiths. Further calculations confirmed my hypothesis. It is difficult to explain in layman’s terms. But imagine a snakelike graph.” Nok made a wave like motion with his right hand. “Half the time the line is rising until it reaches its peak and starts falling until it reaches a trough and starts rising again. My calculation is that the time between peak and trough is about fifty years.”
“But what does all this mean to us, to you or me?”
“It means that unless we are killed by accident or disease, at some time we shall go into suspended animation and start growing young again. We are both look over forty already, but actually we are only thirty five.”
“But that’s ridiculous. Nobody will possibly believe you. You will be a laughing stock!”
“Don’t you remember giving me the history of Oliver Trent?”
“But that was sheer fantasy concocted from a handful of coincidences, like the dog that did not bark in the night!”
“That, I agree, would be the universal opinion. That is why I have delayed so long.”
“And what about our father? He died!”
“I never actually told you that he was dead, although I admit that it was my intention that you should believe that was the case.”
“You lied to me!” Din shouted. “What the fuck’s your game, you bastard!”
“We are all bastards, you may recall. My game, as you may call it, is the pursuit of truth. Yours is the pursuit of power. The two pursuits may occasionally conflict. Politicians can ignore facts that are inconvenient; a scientist never can. When you have calmed down I should like to introduce you to someone. I trust that your behaviour will be appropriate.”
Nok walked across the room, knocked on the bedroom door and opened it in response to a sound from inside.
“Oliver, please join us. I want you to meet your most famous son, Din Matcha, Thailand’s minister of finance.”
Oliver emerged nervously, but was emboldened by the sight of what seemed to be Nok’s double. He held out his hand and said, “Good evening, sir.”
Never had Din experienced such a confusion of contradictory emotions. Standing in front of him was his father, who alone had made possible his education and his career. Yet his very existence, or rather Nok’s exploitation of his existence, could shatter that career just at the moment when it was reaching its peak. He took Oliver’s hand.
“Hello father. I am so pleased to see you. I thought you had died.”
Oliver smiled. “Well I suppose I did in a way. Nok has tried to explain it all to me, but it is all very complicated.”
No one could be hostile towards such an innocent old man. Din attempted to draw Nok to one side when the telephone rang. The managing director was acutely embarrassed at disobeying Dr Marshall’s instructions, but a member of parliament was creating a scene and insisting on seeing her brother. He believed that he was still in Dr Marshall’s suite.
“Send her up,” Nok replied succinctly and put the phone down.
“Has the battle-axe mellowed with the years? It appears not. But Sunny obviously adores her, so she must have her softer side.”
It was, however, only Din whom Fah was surprised to see. Sunny followed her into the room and went straight over to hug Oliver.
“So are you part of the plot too?” she barked at the finance minister. “I want some answers; and true ones not parliamentary ones!”
“No my dear,” Nok intervened, “he knew nothing and I am afraid he is rather distressed.”
“I have a damn right to be distressed!” Din yelled. “Do you know what he is going to do? He is going to publish a paper showing that at the age of fifty we are going to lose our memories and then start growing young again. You know what that means?”
Fah had learned enough from Sunny to be unfazed by such a dramatic announcement.
“I imagine that there will be lots of interesting consequences in the long term. But I suppose that in the short term you are considering its effects on your taking over as leader of the party and prime minister after the holidays. When are you planning to publish, Nok?”
“At the beginning of June in a lecture at Cambridge.”
“Well Din, you will be happily installed in Government House by then and in total control of the media. I do not suppose that Nok need mention you by name in his lecture.” Nok nodded his assent.
“Then I suggest that for the time being Nok plays down the number of people affected in Thailand. I cannot believe that the number is important to the science.” Again Nok assented.
“I agree with you Fah, but we must be prepared for any consequences. It is my unalterable decision that I inform all our brothers and sisters with the trisomy of my predictions for our future. Once more than a handful of people knows the truth it is almost inevitable that the information will leak into the press in a garbled version. That is why I would prefer to present my conclusions to the scientific community. I have already sent my paper in confidence to Dr Darunpan in Australia in case I die before deciding to publish.
“Tomorrow afternoon before the banquet I shall invite all the elder brothers and sisters to come up here to meet their father and receive my explanation of his present life and his former one. I think that no more need be said about Oliver Trent.”
“Oliver who?” Fah asked.
“Never mind. It is all very ancient history. At the end of the meeting I suggest we take a simple vote. I trust that we shall all abide by its result. This evening I think we shall be most comfortable if we dine up here, shall we not?”
Nok went to the refrigerator and took out a magnum of Krug. He filled five glasses and handed them around.
“Here’s to our past and our future! Good Luck! Choke Dee!”
The Children of OM is the sequel to The Peculiar History of Oliver Trent, which follows the lives of three gay men in the battle for Gay rights in the last half of the Twentieth Century. For information please email info@elcastillon.coml.