‘That was very moving.’ Simon observes as they stand watching the last of Duan’s mother’s bones whiten and become one with the embers. The cremation guests have shuffled back to their own huts. Duan will be staying in the village Arthur explains, to settle some matters pertaining to her mother’s estate. There is the pig and some chickens to be disposed of. Duan will be joining them later in Chiang Mai. Simon thinks it might have something to do with the bloke who went through her handbag; the one who had been introduced as ‘Cousin me.’ But he keeps his thoughts to himself. Why upset Arthur at this delicate moment? If he knows about the alleged cousin he shows no signs of caring.
‘You don’t have many clothes I notice.’ Says Simon. They are now waiting by the road for a bus back to Chiang Mai.
‘The less the better,’ says Arthur whose skinny frame is covered only by a singlet and shorts as if he’s ready for senior gym, ‘it’s hot here as you’ve probably noticed. And getting dressed in the morning is easier with less stuff to worry about.’
‘Well I’m all for that,’ says Simon, ‘do you have trouble with your toenails.’
‘They do seem a bit brittle lately, is that what you mean?’
‘Yes. I find the sharp bits keep catching on my underpants.’
‘Kingsley Amis…‘The Old Devils’?’
‘Right. Page 115, Peter getting dressed.’
More people have found there way to the bus stop, whole families are disembarking from motorbikes and looking for places to squat. The children are obviously intrigued by the two alien monsters but staying close to their parents.
‘Why are they so shy?’ Simon asks.
‘It’s natural,’ says Arthur.
‘Where’s the danger then? Where’s the friction? Where is the energy?’
‘Burroughs right? I had a dream about him last night.’
‘Wild Bill. I met him you know.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. In London. Interviewed him actually for an underground magazine.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Not as scary as you’d think. Bit of a softy really. He regretted everything, he said.’
‘So here we are in a bus shelter in Northern Thailand making obscure literary references.’
‘It passes the time. OK, I’ve got one for you. Replacing the cap on a tube of toothpaste…this should always be done at once, few things are worse than an uncapped tube maladroitly squeezed twisting up out of the bathroom glass drooling paste unless it be a tube with the cap barbarously forced on all askew against the threads.’
‘Give up.’
‘Burroughs again.’
‘Never.’
‘It’s in ‘Exterminator’. The Discipline of DE.’
‘That doesn’t count. You can’t have Burroughs twice in a row,’
‘Bollocks. Here comes the bus.’
They climb aboard, the conductress gives them a welcoming grin and they’re off like a rocket. All the garlands and Buddha amulets obscuring the front window have given the driver confidence in his own immortality. Or perhaps he expects to get reincarnated as the owner of a fleet of lavishly decorated tour buses. Either way he seems determined to challenge Fate. As their bus roars past large trucks and other buses other larger trucks and buses bear down on them missing each other by inches. Smaller traffic, cars, pickups etcetera weave in and out, motorcyclists take their chances on the gravel shoulder. Simon supposes it has it’s own oriental logic but it certainly looks haphazard. None of it seems to bother Arthur much. Presumably he’s used to it.
‘Wow, it is getting delicate as the so called ‘real’ characters are getting infiltrated and changed by the ‘imagined’ characters of their own creation.’
‘Alexandrian Quartet?’
‘Close. Durrell in a letter to Miller’
‘I don’t know what I ever saw in him.’
‘Miller?’
‘Durrell.’
‘The fact that England has embraced me as one of its own is really cool.’
‘Dylan?’
‘Tarantino.’
‘Never heard of him.’
Rice paddies flash past the window in various shades of green, tall palms dot the landscape. Along the road are fishponds, wooden houses on stilts, newer ones made of concrete blocks, breadfruit, papayas, mango trees, groups of Thais lounging in the shade thereof. Then come uncultivated stretches, clumps of bamboo, patches of jungle, young teak trees with leaves the size of dinner plates. They arrive at an open area by the side of the road and the bus pulls in. A combination rest stop and tourist trap Simon guesses. Getting off the bus they are immediately set on by a bunch of small smiling elaborately costumed hill tribe women.
‘Akha’ says Arthur, ‘you can tell by the hats.’ The women are determined to sell them tray loads of silver jewelry and opium pipes, articles of beaded and embroidered clothing, their hats, especially their hats.
Arthur comes back from the smelly, ramshackle toilet.
‘How was it? Simon asks as they re-board the bus.
‘Surprisingly firm.’
‘I mean the toilet.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’ Says Arthur. Simon says something about waiting till he gets to the hotel. This might involve a tense change if that’s OK with the editor. (Cheeky).
‘Barth?’
‘Shower.’
When they are safely back in their seats Arthur says excitedly, ‘I think I’ve got it.’
‘Got what?’
‘Everything.’ says Arthur even more excitedly, ‘Separation of the grain from the husks. The aforementioned improvement in the bowel condition.’
‘Oh gawd…it’s Krapp’s Last Tape now is it….’
‘Don’t you see? It’s all been about escape.’
‘From what?’
‘Oh I don’t know…family, self, reality.’
‘For you maybe. More like immersion for me. Trying to understand life, myself. Any thoughts on a final chapter?’
‘I go to London to do book-signings. You stay here and become a monk. We are two sides of a coin don’t you think?’
‘We are all one,’ says Simon cryptically. ‘Trouble is…’
The narrator saw it coming of course and did a bunk, scarpered. Two buses colliding head on at speed. Not nice. The front ends of the buses were a gruesome concertina, a mess of metal and flesh all fused into one, captured in a lurid flash photograph which took up half the front page of the next day’s newspaper. About 100 Thai policemen needed several hours to get all the bodies out. After some minor negotiations between the local police and the British Consul in Chiang Mai, Simon’s laptop found it’s way to the British Embassy in Bangkok thence to his producer in London who transferred some of the more finished files onto a disc. This in turn was passed to a literary agent friend who suggested I might be interested. I said sure let’s have a look which is how come it’s on my hard drive. Am I interested? Well yes and no. It’s publishable I think…in a roman-a-clef kind of way. Simon’s reputation will help. It could do with a bit less flippancy and the plot needs strengthening. Whoever wrote it is no Murakami. I’m passing it to Samantha. It will give her something to do in Tuscany. Keep her off the piss. Who am I? I’m a well-respected London publisher. Sorry but we are currently unable to accept any unsolicited manuscripts.
