The Thai Wife

By Meridith Mckinnon

Lek Jaipong’s family is surrounded by violence, much of it emanating from the background of human trafficking carried out across central Thailand. When she marries David, an Australian engineer from Warrnambool, her life changes forever. But she can never escape the memories. Haunted by her past, Lek eventually makes a choice about her future.

What seemingly starts as a love story of betrayal and sacrifice, soon leads to a deeper understanding of the suffering of Burma’s stateless and their fight against persecution.

At times brutal and murderous, this Thai wife is not the person she seems – and certainly not the person her husband thought he knew.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jun 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781925595765

Meridith Mckinnon

Publishing a novel has been an exciting time in my life. The Thai Wife grew from when I lived in Thailand as a teenager on student exchange. My time there has made me who I am today, given me the inspiration to write and has given me endless opportunities. It wasn’t until I lived in South Korea in 2015, that I began to write it.I live on the most southern part of Australia's coast on a windswept property with my husband. We swim, fish, love life and have two beautiful children.I’m currently writing my next novel.Follow me on Instagram @meridithmckinnon

Book preview

LEK:

The Thai child

No noise, just the whites of eyes on dark skin in a dark box, in the yard, at the rear of my house. The eyes peered back at me, blinking in the darkness. I strained to make out faces, bunched together, huddled in a group, all blinking towards me.

The yard was normally an empty, deserted place. A place I seldom thought of, a desolate space of dry ground and sparse greenery where a drain meets the edge. I’d seen men walk from the yard to the house with my father. It wasn’t often and maybe that’s why they caught my attention. They paid no mind to me as I sat at the table doing homework, but I watched them. I remember the fine dust rise around their shoes, dirtying their polished leather. They wore sharply pressed long pants, open neck collared shirts and gold chains. As they drew heavily on their cigarettes, gold glistened from their fingers.

When I saw The Girl go to the yard, it made me more curious. Then one day, in darkness, I saw her slip away and I followed, into the darkness, through the gate and towards the shipping container. Nearby dogs remained undisturbed as they scratched flea-ridden coats in the dust. I kept close behind her in the dull sight of a distant street light. I’d brought the torch from the back door just in case. A stench came from a corner of the yard. My nostrils twitched with the putrid smell of something rotting that had been well picked over. I stumbled on an empty bottle but she didn’t appear to hear me.

The Girl wedged open the air vent on the side of the container. She fed a small bag through the hole, then snapped shut the vent without a second glance and left. A scratchy mutt sniffed at my feet as I crouched low, scarcely hidden by one of the few bushes, until she was completely out of sight. Then I went to the small opening and, like she did, prized open the cover on the vent and it dropped to the ground. I looked through and saw the eyes. Flicking the torch on, it took a few seconds to adjust to the change of light, but as I did it became clear. Not a sound, just more eyes.

As a child I couldn’t have described how I felt. But now, as an adult, I recognise that I was shocked, terrified and stunned all at once by what I saw. I remember hearing the noise of the torch hitting the floor inside the container. I couldn’t feel for the vent cover quickly enough. I found it at my feet and fumbled to snap it back in place. Why I bothered I don’t know. Then in panic I fled from the yard before anyone, outside the container, saw me. Running back to the house, my heart rushed at a faster pace than my legs could carry me. I fell, got up, kept running. Run … quick! RUN! I said to myself as I made it back to the house and upstairs. I shut the door behind me and leaned back against it, gasping for air.

Too afraid to move at first, I eventually leant forward, my face brushing the cotton curtain, to peer down where my father stood talking into a car window under insect-blurred street lights. As I watched him he looked up, seemingly right at me, and I hid. Crouching to the floor I shuddered and hugged my knees to my chest as though I felt cold. I knew, The Girl knew, and I was certain he knew, about the people in the container.

It was 1972 and I was 12 years old.

THE THAI WIFE

PART ONE

1

DAVID

1994

We drove a Volvo 850 turbo, automatic in stone black. She chose it and for a bit of fun I indulged her. On this day I drove it to work. She said she didn’t need it. She rode her bike most days, so nothing unusual about this day. I took the car and she rode the bike. I left at 8.45 am wearing grey trousers, white shirt (with a spot of smeared jam) and a silk tie she’d given me last birthday. She dressed me; I had no dress sense she said. She would have left the house not long after I did. She would have worn the full cycling gear: Adidas lycra, Nike shoes, glasses and helmet. ‘You’re a lean, mean pocket rocket,’ I’d tell her. Fucking gorgeous. Seriously fit though, and dead serious about it.

I arrived home early. The boys were playing football in the backyard. I called out for Lek and emptiness sprung back. The boys ran towards me as I slid open the back glass door and both spat out, ‘Where’s Mum?’ in unison. Breathless and distracted by the bouncing football neither waited for an answer as they spun on their heels and ran off again. Still standing at the back door I observed the kitchen: a sterile clean sink and brown Laminex with only the rice cooker dominating its landscape. I shot a glance at the clock, reached for the phone and speed dialled the number under the name Huong. The call went to an answering machine. I hesitated, but didn’t leave a message.

I watched the boys wrestling over a bush, almost flattening it as they went. I loosened my shirt, unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled my sleeves. As I turned back towards the kitchen I noticed the pantry neatly stacked with an unusual amount of extra food. A couple more steps and there was something different about the sideboard. Maybe the photos rearranged? I flicked through the day’s mail—bills, bank statements—boring. Then I paused to look back at the sideboard again. Something’s weird. Maybe a photo missing?

The phone rang and it was Huong. Straight to the point she said, ‘You rang. What you want?’

I assumed Lek had been with Huong at some stage that day. They spent a lot of time together. ‘Wondered where Lek was, that’s all,’ I said.

‘I not see her all day. She tell me that she busy but I don’t know where, she not tell me,’ she yelled back. Christ, don’t yell at me like I’m fucking deaf.

‘Okay, Huong, thanks, no worries, talk to you later,’ I raised my voice in reply.

Putting the phone down I gazed back at the sideboard again where a photo frame had sat. I pulled my tie loose and popped open the button on my collar. I walked on up the hallway glancing at each doorway and calling her name.

Still no answer.

Even for Lek, who was often late, sometimes unpredictable, something didn’t seem right.

We’d met in ’81. I’d finished a degree in Engineering in 1979 and thought about travelling. I’d grown up in rural Victoria and seen nothing of the world. I thought of backpacking or volunteering. Only thought of it from the comfort of my parent’s middle class home. However, I successfully applied to an Australian company who were contracted to manage sustainable water practices in Thailand. Far from volunteering, this job paid well, seemed all civilised and grown up, and included flights and accommodation. Not bad for a country boy from Warrnambool. I’d never been to Thailand—never been out of Australia. I was a true-blue Aussie boy with conservative parents who didn’t travel (the comforts of home were too good) and sisters who spoilt me as their only brother. For me, though, it was a great opportunity and I was up for the challenge. I was single—I’d never had a girlfriend. So no ties, nothing to stop me except over-protective parents and an obligatory sense of duty as an only son. But they came around. After all, they had raised the textbook boy who had never given them grief; a good boy.

After farewell drinks and a home cooked roast with the family I left on a 2 year contract. The company’s two week orientation in Bangkok gave me some insight but nothing, and I mean nothing or no-one, could have prepared me for Kamphaengphet, a small city in central Thailand, remote and very rural. The culture shock was confronting. It took some chewing through, pardon the pun, for a big guy like me to get used to the food, but I persevered. Episodes of prolonged periods over squat toilets taught me to be selective about what and where I ate. I learnt the importance of hydration, the location of toilets and Lomotil. Never had I valued the ability of a drug to immediately stop the cramps and shit. I dropped ten kilos in the first six months. Probably from the combination of sweating and almost shitting myself to death. I had to learn the language: there was simply no English. Sawadee krup[1] , and khop khun krup[2] catapulted my journey into Thai culture.

Jeez, when I look back on it I don’t know how I did it.

Living in central Thailand in the 1980s was hugely challenging. It was a tough environment coping with the influx of Cambodian and Burmese refugees who provided cheap labour that destabilised local wages and increased the crime rate. Although the refugees came over the border, they weren’t considered foreign or farungs like westerners were. I was rarely alone but often lonely. Very few foreigners made their way to this part of Thailand, except the odd missionary who I would occasionally visit just to talk in English. English speaking missionaries had no interest in me, though. I was not for conversion. Their turnover was frequent and I grew weary of their conviction. Christian missions in a traditional Buddhist environment didn’t sit well with me and I began to avoid them.

Work took me to even more remote areas, like the mountainous lush Thai-Burmese border and inland to the hot and dry plains. The locals all knew me simply because I was foreign. I stood out in every way: fair hair on my fair body, large daggy shorts that I wore all year round, and I was at least thirty centimetres taller than anyone in the entire province.

Although often lonely for English, I made friends easily; I had that kind of happy-go-lucky personality and casual manner that agreed with the Thai culture. If things frustrated me I didn’t let it show. If the heat got to me it was only noticed by my sweat-saturated shirt. Believe me though, there were times I was insanely frustrated by the disorganised workplace but I learnt to let it go, as the few times I got hot under the collar I quickly realised it got me nowhere. Smile, swear fuck off under your breath, suck it up and move on. To show anger is to lose face in Thai culture. So many, many times when I was close to exploding I had to remind myself of this. It was crucial to my survival.

Kamphaeng Phet province became my home. Kamphaengphet city itself I quite liked. Double-storey shops lined the business area, the ground floors being for the businesses and the upstairs predominantly for the families to live in. Metal grill roller doors featured repeatedly as the front entrances to all the shops. Each morning brought the familiar sound of metal clunking on metal as the doors sprung open and workers began their day. Merchandise was dragged out from the shops—mainly to make room to enter—and worn wooden and metal stools were placed out front where idle hands sat and active mouths talked.

When I first arrived I chose to ride a push bike to the office. Days started early which helped me escape the rising heat and I soon became a familiar face in the morning ritual. Transport consisted of pickup trucks, motorbikes and bicycles, all blending into the landscape of a no-rules driving culture.

Weekend trips to Bangkok introduced me into the world of ladyboys, bar girls and prostitutes. It seemed everywhere I went girls were laid on. Night clubs were insane. I wasn’t comfortable being part of all that shit. The treatment of the girls—it wasn’t right. Some of the foreign guys I met in Bangkok were pretty bad. Violent and shit-crazy drunk or on drugs. It was what all Thai men (and women) thought farungs craved. I was meant to be impressed and I was. Fuck, I’d never seen women like it. But it was insane and cruel—I swear at one place the girls were barely teenagers. I was there long enough to sense they were too young and didn’t speak Thai, and I got out quick. Welcome to the real Thailand, I thought, where life is cheap and sex is brutal.

Strange how cynical I sound because I really did like the Thai people. I didn’t always understand them but I liked them. And they loved me. I quickly developed a good grasp of the language, I wasn’t loud or offensive like some foreigners and I didn’t take offence easily. I was a novelty and often felt on show. How easily I could have taken offence to the constant stares, the calls of farung and the hands that often ran up and down my arms or legs—the novelty of feeling the hair on my body. The white, hairy farung. Fuck it was irritating at times. And at times I just wished for a normal conversation. This rarely happened. But on the whole, they were good people and I was just different.

Then I met Lek.

‘Mr David! Mr David!’

When I opened the door I was met by a boy from the local hospital, frantically calling my name. He said he’d been sent to ask for my help: they needed an interpreter. I’d never been asked this before but, happy to help, I agreed to follow him on my motorbike. Whatever had happened, I hoped it wasn’t too serious. We sped through the narrow streets to the other side of town and soon arrived at the local hospital. I was surprised to learn that the patient I was to help had been in a bus accident which had happened more than two days ago. Maybe they thought it wasn’t necessary to ask for an interpreter. I suppose injuries don’t always need a translation if they are obvious?

We parked our bikes out front of the main entrance. A red cross dominated the arch of the entry and the word hospital in Thai, but missing the second letter, sat above that, faded from the sun. I expected to be met by someone, perhaps of authority, but the boy himself led me to the room of an American male. The boy bowed and indicated for me to enter, as I crossed the threshold he turned and was gone in a flash. Inside the room the stench of stale urine prevailed, and by the light of the small window I could see the American laying back on a metal bed. First observations told me he had no broken bones but bruises and cuts covered what I could see. Emotionally he became more traumatised as he described how the accident had happened.

‘It’s so frustrating that no-one understands me, no fucker speaks English …’

We’re in Thailand, you dick. I nodded, pretending to show sympathy as the American continued to describe his ordeal. The bus had taken the bend too fast, he concluded, and the driver overcorrected—it happened so quickly. With no air conditioning and seatbelts unheard of, all the windows were open, and bodies appeared to just fly through the air. After being thrown from the bus he laid among the others. He described mangled bloodied bodies, with limbs appearing twisted and broken. He spoke of the moment of consciousness when he realised that someone was digging through his pockets. He said they thought he was dead. He felt his pocket being emptied of his passport and his watch taken from his wrist. He was too frightened to move. He watched them go over other bodies taking what they could and then he heard sirens and yelling and noticed fast movements as the thieves fled. He lay still for God knew how long, fearful of the next person that would come near him. The dead surrounded him and the pain could be heard from the survivors for some distance away.

‘Jesus Christ, I thought they’d fucking kill me if I moved.’

I believed him.

‘The bastards thought I was dead.’ He rested back on the wall behind his trolley bed. He grimaced. It occurred to me how ridiculous the bed looked; undersized for the large body. He continued to tell me of the two French tourists who had already been taken to Bangkok and the four Germans who had died along with twenty-seven Thais. The bus accident was horrendous. How have I not heard about this? While I’d like to say that I wanted to let him have a moment after unloading all that, I really needed a moment to process it myself, so I moved out into the hallway to try to get myself together.

I didn’t leave him for long as a nurse appeared and rather shyly asked me to translate for her. The American repositioned himself in the bed and it was then obvious he had real discomfort on moving. The nurse pointed to him in a way that indicated I should help him. She drew the sheet back and there was blood. He rolled onto his side and, horrified, I could see shattered glass covering both his buttocks. Shards of it were embedded into the skin and possibly through his groin. Not being a medical person I was shocked by what I saw. The nurse saw the look on my face, dropped the sheet and fled the room.

Fuck.

I called for her. I said to the American I’d be back and I went after her. I went into room after room, looking for her. Dogs passed me in the hallway where patients lay on trolleys with fluid running into their arms. Jesus. I made a mental note to myself to never get so sick that I’d require hospitalisation. Where is everyone and where is this nurse? Finally, I broke through a curtain to see her stepping back, visibly shaking and fear covering her face. I stepped towards her; she stepped back further. I put my hands up showing peace.

‘It’s okay … okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll do this together. You tell me what I can do and we’ll help the farung together, but Jesus …’ for Christ’s sake, do something, I finished to myself. Then together, Lek and I returned to the American where we slowly removed the glass, then cleaned and dressed his wounds.

A bright orange sunset silhouetted gum trees in our yard where the boys continued to rough and tumble. I took out a packet of frozen fish from the freezer for dinner, turned the oven on, pausing to squint at the digital clock on the oven. I turned back and eyed the sideboard again, not sure what I was thinking. The warble of nearby magpies echoed across the still air into the open window that framed the driveway. I stood looking down