Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

The penthouse flat overlooked the racecourse. Trexler saw below him the gathering of horses that heralded the start of a race, but Mr Rama drew his attention instead to a bank of computer screens through the open door of an adjacent room.

‘See, Mr Jones, how we marry tradition and technology. I like to see how my investments perform. Perhaps I can tempt you to a small wager before the race begins. There are a few minutes left.’

‘I’m afraid I have only a few thousand baht,’ Trexler replied nervously.

The response was an icy stare that caught him unawares. ‘If you have no money, Mr Jones, what are we doing talking about orchids?’

‘That is a different matter, Sir.’

‘Indeed it is.’ He turned to the window to contemplate the final preparations for the race. ‘I understand you got on well with my daughter, Mr Jones.’

‘Very much so.’

‘And found her attractive?’

‘What man wouldn’t?’

‘That’s good, very good. Because it might make the orchid affordable for you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Ten thousand sterling for the orchid and the hand of my daughter in marriage. You see, Mr Jones, I want a life for her in your country so that she can be allowed – if you’ll forgive the euphemism – to blossom.’ He turned again to the window. ‘Ah, the race begins.’

That night Trexler slept fitfully. The moths around the bulb were conspicuously absent, as if aware that there was just too much excitement to share. However much Trexler tried to bring logic to bear there was always the spectre of his grandfather to over-ride it: in the mirror above where he filled his glass, in the pattern of flowers in the curtain, even when he looked down at the matting on the floor. You owe me this, the cold, demanding eyes seemed to say.

In the morning he telephoned Mr Rama’s office to convey his decision, but both father and daughter were away. With ice in his heart he left a message: tell Mr Rama that my answer is yes. ‘Mr Rama will be very pleased,’ said the receptionist. ‘What do you mean?’ Trexler replied, alarmed that his secret might be out. ‘Why, to receive such an important order,’ the voice replied.

In the days that followed, Trexler’s attempts to see Maia seemed thwarted at every turn. First her grandmother had summoned her to Chiang Mai to give guidance on the marital state. Then, by telephone, she told him that she had visited the site of origin of his orchids, where he should join her the following day. But when he reached the rendezvous at the beginning of a forest track she was not there, and he was taken to see only patches of recently disturbed earth. On telephoning the Bangkok office he was told that her father had taken ill and required her immediate attention. Trexler asked himself if it mattered that much, and returned to his Bangkok hotel having, for the moment, written her out of the equation. The marriage and its foreseeable aftermath was a diversion, albeit a pleasant one, that was best looked upon as an embellishment of his great deed. There would be plenty of time to come to terms with it and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.

It was in this frame of mind that he accompanied his wife to be, his prospective father-in-law and diverse family members unknown to him to a registry office somewhere across the Chao Phraya River. She made no attempt to lift her veil, whispering to him that she did not know what the impact of a kiss might make on her family. In fact they had hardly spoken since the now familiar black Mercedes had collected him from his hotel. Something was amiss, but he could not put his finger on it. It therefore came as no surprise when Mr Rama touched his arm and led him aside.

‘There are small problems with the paperwork for your plants – CITES permits and the like. I may have been a little less generous with the information than was expected. If I take your wife with me to sort it out she can meet you at the airport with the plants. Best to give me her ticket in case you get separated.’ Then he added, ‘It’s a good thing the documents are in her family name.’

It was not until Trexler reached the departure hall that he felt he had played with and lost ten thousand pounds, besides having no plants and no wife. On the screen the line for his flight crept steadily upwards like the water level in some medieval aquatic torture, but still there was no sign of her. When it indicated the boarding gate he accepted defeat, cursed himself for being a fool and made his way sadly to the check-in area, vowing never to return.

But he was wrong, at least in part.

‘Ah, Mr Jones,’ the girl at the check-in desk said, ‘your companion could not find you and has already gone through.’

‘Was she carrying a… package,’ he enquired tentatively.

‘We argued about it,’ the girl said casually, ‘but it just made it as hand luggage. But Mr Jones, you must hurry. The gate will be closing.’

At the gate the last few passengers were showing their boarding cards as Trexler joined them.

In the plane he thought he saw her long black hair, encasing her head like a shroud, halfway down the plane. Then, to his joy, there in the open luggage rack above her was the box, clearly marked with the Anova logo and the legend ‘plants – this was up.’ Never had the English language seemed so sweet. He sat heavily in the vacant seat beside her. ‘Thank you!’ he said softly. And slowly she turned her head to acknowledge him.

Trexler’s wife answered the knock at the door.

‘My husband is expecting you, Dr Bloomfield.’

‘Ray, please.’

‘Of course. How silly. I still haven’t got used to having you as a brother-in-law.’

‘Maia managed to keep it from you all that time?’

Sirita blushed. ‘Well, no, of course not. We are too close for that. Actually I’ve known since you brought those plants to us from Chiang Mai.’ She brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his lapel. ‘I can’t think how one of them happened to find its way here, though.’

‘Oh, these things happen. We can’t all be perfect, can we?’ Suddenly Bloomfield looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘that was tactless of me. Please forgive me.’

‘No need to be, really. They say the cataract can be removed and that there’s sight behind it. I go in next month – it should be fine.’

‘I’m really glad,’ Bloomfield said. ‘Oh, before I see Martin – if you don’t mind me asking – is everything all right… between you, I mean?’

Sirita smiled ruefully. ‘No, but when it happens I think the separation will be… well… cordial.’

‘Do you think he’ll accept me… as a member of the family, so to speak?

‘It will be a great shock for him.’

‘Yes, true. But not half as much as this.’ Bloomfield withdrew from his coat pocket a large brown envelope and laid it on the hall table. ‘I sent it off two days ago. This copy is for Martin.’

‘What did you decide to call it?’

‘ Paphiopedilum bloomfieldii. ’

‘It will hurt him.’

‘I know,’ Bloomfield said, making for Trexler’s door.

The Reverend Lucas Parsons smiled to himself as he replaced the Church Times in the rack beside his chair. Curious how the recent spate of thefts had occurred around his own minster town of Bixworth. First it had been lead from the roofs, a crime he had forestalled in his own church by installing CCTV. But that hadn’t prevented the theft of the church plate from the chest in the vestry and candlesticks from the altar, even though the church door was kept permanently shut. He rose from the chair, called to Mrs Webley, his housekeeper, to say that he was going out and ambled across the lane to the graveyard where mourners were already gathering for the interment. Drops of rain struck his starched white cuff, narrowly missing the half-concealed book of common prayer under his arm.