Behind the Smile

1 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE-1

1 A BOLT FROM THE BLUELek was waiting in Craig’s study.

She had been building up the courage for this moment for days and at the precise moment that she had chosen to do it, he had gone to the toilet. She knew that if he didn’t get back soon, she would be in tears before she could tell him her news.

She heard the flush go, so she steeled herself, but then the shower started. He would have to pick just this moment to have a shower too, she thought, but to be fair, he didn’t know that she wanted to speak to him. They spoke so seldom to each other these days.

Lek started to dust his desk with her handkerchief and tidy his bits and pieces for something to distract her, but she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes already. What the Hell was he doing in there?

She went into the kitchen and poured Craig his second daily cup of coffee, took it back into the office, cleared a space for it among the clutter on his desk and carefully put it down.

Clack! The bolt was thrown on the bathroom door with the sound of a rifle being c****d.

As he came into the office moments later, he was surprised to see Lek standing there – she would normally have left the house hours ago to embark on her quotidian routine tour of friends for coffee and then lunch.

“Hello, telak, how are you this morning?” He kissed her on the temple and sat down. “Thanks for the coffee. Just what I need.”

That was it, she was crying. Tears flowed down her face although unaccompanied by any sounds of sobbing at all.

“Oh, Craig, my darling! I am so unhappy... I think that I must go back to Pattaya and start work in Daddy’s Hobby again, if Beou will have me. I am so sorry, my dear.”

“I don’t understand... ‘if Beou will have you’. We have talked about your going to the city to get a job. The costs of our living in a city would outweigh what you could earn...”

“No, dear. I don’t mean that we go to Pattaya... I mean that I go alone. I can live in a cheap room; share with other girls, like I did before. You... you cannot come with me. You must stay here...”

“What? You are telling me that you want to go back to Pattaya to work in a bar and that I should just sit here and wait at home?”

“Yes, but not wait... I will not come back... You can stay here... get a divorce.... go… wherever you like. You can find a new lady, a good lady to take care of you and I will... I don’t know what I will do, but it will be without you. I am so sorry.”

Once she had spoken, Lek regained her composure and the tears ceased to flow, but as the magnitude of what Lek has just said sank in, Craig began to cry.

It had been so unexpected. He had seen no signs. Not a dicky bird. He looked up at Lek, who was calmly staring back into his watery eyes.

“But why, Lek? What has brought this on now? I just don’t understand.”

“I don’t know where to start, Craig, but I have been unhappy for some time. I expected more than this. I thought... I spent ten years waiting for my hero to rescue me and all the time I worked and put up with crap, but worked on and dreamed of a better life. Then I met you and I thought that my dreams had come true... I am not saying this well. It is not your fault, but I expected more and I want more than.... than this.

“We have been together for about eight years and married for five or six years, but I am poorer now than when I was working. I know that that it is not your fault, Craig, you work hard, but... well, you know, we have nothing and I don’t want to live like that.

“Soom has been at university for a year now and it costs... I want my daughter to go to university and I cannot see how we can afford it on the money you earn. I tried to better myself too… I went back to school, but there is no work for people like me here in Baan Suay. If we had a car, maybe I could get a job somewhere near, but... not have.

“I do not have a choice, Craig. My family means everything to me and my daughter more than all that put together. I am so sorry.”

Craig thought before replying, his tears had also dried up, “So, I do not count as family after eight years? How long does it take to become a member of your family if you’re not born Thai? You know that I gave up my friends and my family to come here – or at least I put them after you... and now you are saying ‘bye bye’? I can see that you want Soom to have a better life, so do I, but you also know that I sit here working for fifteen hours a day, while you go out and socialise or whatever.”

“I am not blaming you, my dear. You did a very brave thing to come to try to help me and my family, but it has not worked out and now we must move on. I am very sorry.”

“Way! I did not come here to rescue you and help your family, I came here because I loved you and thought you loved me. Helping your family was secondary to me. I always told you that I would do whatever I could to help your family and I have, not that they have ever asked for anything.”

“Yes, I know, but I did not understand the differences between falang and Thai then, same as you did not understand. It was just a big accident...”

“What? Us falling in love was a ‘big accident’? My coming over here, building a house that I will never own and working fifteen hours a day for eight years is just a ‘big accident’?

“Lek, Lek, Lek, you hurt me now very much...”

“OK, lovely accident, but now my daughter must have money and I don’t have. You have?... No? So I must go get. Or can you go get? If you cannot, I must. My mother cannot give, my family cannot give. You think that Soom must work on weekends and at night? She cannot make enough money in a hamburger bar to pay for university, so what you want her to do? Work in a bar same me before?

“I kill someone first. I steal from someone first... but I go to work first and kill and steal later... If you have a good idea, Craig, please tell me, because I don’t want to go away again.”

Now they were both crying and Craig stood up to hug his wife, his mind racing with possibilities to save their marriage.

After a few moments, Lek pulled away, “I am sorry, Craig, but it is no good getting close and crying. Something has to be done and if I am going to go away, this is not helping either of us. You understand why I must do this and I understand that you cannot help me.

“I will leave in two days. Do you want me to move out now?”

“No, no, not yet, Lek... I think that you ought to at least tell me the costs and the shortfall. I have never asked you because you always seemed to have everything in hand and now you hit me with this! Or do you actually want to go?”

“I do not lie to you, my husband, but it is true that I do not, or have not always told you the truth one hundred percent. I tried to many times, maybe every time in the beginning, but the language was between us and … well, it was easier not to.

“When I worked in Daddy’s Hobby, I did lots of things that I did not want to do because I had to do them. I do not want to say any more about that unless you ask me and that is your right, I think.

“Anyway, I saved some money for Soom’s education. Goong also left me 500,000 Baht when she died four or five years ago. I gave some of it to her family, but kept most of it.

“I don’t have much of it left now. I was bored here for years with nothing to do and gambled a lot of it away on cards. I paid Soom’s university fees last year and I have supplemented the money that you gave me for food for several years.

“Now, I cannot pay Soom’s university fees when they come up next year and cannot buy her the clothes, books and laptop that she needs right now to be comfortable with her studies. I don’t want her to look poor in university! She is the first person in my family to go to university and I want to give her every chance.

“That may mean losing you... but I will do it, if I have to, my darling, because I don’t know what else I can do.”

A few tears escaped her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away with her hand.

Craig was looking down at the beautifully-tiled floor, feeling like a total failure.

“So, you have paid the fees for now, right?” he said not meeting her eyes. “When do you need more money for Soom?”

“About six months. I pay university fees two times a year, but I give Soom money for her room and living every month.”

“So you have six months?”

“No, I must start working now to give Soom money every month and then more fees in six months. If I wait, it is too late.”

“OK, Lek... I wish that you had brought this up before, but, please give me a few hours to think about the problem, before you do anything quickly. Let’s say that you have... two weeks, eh? Can you wait two weeks?”

Lek nodded and put her hand on his shoulder, “Sure, I can wait two weeks.”

Craig was still shell-shocked. He put his hand to hers and patted it a few times, slowly. “I wish you had told me your problem before, Lek, I really do. Now, it’s hurry, hurry, hurry, but thanks for... Er, well, we have two weeks, eh? … What are your plans for today?”

“It has taken me days to say this... I don’t have any plans now. Do you?”

“No, but I know that right now, work is not the answer... Why don’t you go off to your mother’s and I’ll have a think?”

Lek was glad of the excuse to get out and be alone, and, having recovered somewhat from the initial shock, so was Craig.

After Lek had left, he finished his cold coffee in one, packed up his laptop and went to the shop where he did a lot of his thinking. The office was for slog work, but Nong’s shop was for deep cogitation, usually over a few ice-cold beers. Watching the people in the village coming and going, carrying out their daily lives had always had a calming, yet inspirational effect upon him.

He sat down at the one table outside the shop and waited for Nong to notice him. He had been drinking at Nong’s shop for eight years, but they still could not talk to each other in any meaningful way. Nong appeared not to have an aptitude for English and Craig had spent most of his time trying to earn money rather than learn Thai.

As he was staring out before himself, he heard Nong say, “Hello Mr. Craig, how are you today?” in Thai.

“Sabaai dee, kap - I’m fine thanks. Khun duay, mai? You too?”

“Yes, thank you. The beer is very cold today.”

Nong always said that, but then the beer was always cold too.

Craig slouched in the bench seat and stretched his feet out in front of himself. He thought with a smile, that if he smoked, this would be a two-pipe problem, as Sherlock Holmes would have said.

“Why hadn’t she mentioned it before? Why the sudden crisis? The real bottom line was, if she believed in karma, as she insisted she did, why did she think that she could change her daughter’s karma?” It did not make sense now, although Lek’s news had hit him like a bullet.

The problem was that Lek seemed to be sure that her only way forward was to go back to work in a bar. So, whether she was right or wrong in her religious philosophy, she would probably leave him in fourteen days.

Craig knew that Lek had an iron will. If that was what she had said she would do, that was what she would do, unless there was a very good reason not to. And the only reason that was good enough was money, so he needed a supply of money.

Or he needed to shed the chains that held him and Lek together – he needed to stop loving her.

Money or love?

That was the dilemma.

Lek had already decided that she would choose money, although not for entirely selfish reasons. Selfishness was in there though, he was sure. He knew that she would not be able to bear the shame of having to withdraw Soom from university for lack of funds.

Although that was the mechanics of the situation, it did not help his predicament. He loved Lek, but he was being offered an honourable way out. No-one would blame him for cutting and running now. Lek had told him that he was on his own.