The Half-Child (17 page)

‘That'd be a Wartime Romance.'

He grinned and actually licked his lips. Jayne gave him a withering look and set the glass back down.

‘So,' she said, lighting a cigarette to get the taste of Wartime Romance out of her mouth. ‘Which one of you wants to get your ass whipped next?'

It was after midnight when she returned to the Bayview Hotel. She was tipsy and her mouth tasted like cough medicine. But it felt great to have had a night out. Her pool form had never been better. And it didn't hurt being the target of some serious flirtation on Tommy's part.

As she entered her room, she found a message slip just inside the door. ‘Rajiv called to you, 21.30'. She felt a twinge of guilt, shook it off. It wasn't as if anything had happened between her and Tommy. For that matter, it wasn't as if much had happened between her and Rajiv either.

She'd allowed Tommy to take her photo before they left the bar—‘a pin-up shot for my locker,' he said—and accepted a kiss on the cheek. But she declined his invitation to meet at the same time and place the following evening.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘but I'm otherwise engaged.'

‘Aw man, did you hear that?' Tommy said to Mitch. ‘She's
engaged
!'

Jayne smiled at the memory, raised her hand to the cheek Tommy had kissed.

21

A
licia gazed at the baby in her lap. Everything about him seemed miraculous. One arm had escaped his swaddling and he'd flung it across his face as if to shield his eyes from the glare of the streetlights. All through the flight to Bangkok and the taxi ride to Pattaya, Alicia had fought back panic at the thought she might not love this baby, who until now existed only as a photo and a typed description: ‘Boy, 11 months old, 8.2 kilograms (18 lb), 74 cm (29 in), brown eyes, black hair, black skin'. She needn't have worried. Alicia loved Jesse from the moment she laid eyes on him. He was warm, brown and soft, and smelled like heaven.

Though they'd only known each other a few hours, he was already her son. She'd have thrown her naked body over cut glass to protect him.

The handover was as lacking in ceremony as a shotgun wedding. There was an English-speaking Thai doctor who vouched for Jesse's health and provided a medical certificate; and an American who gave them the adoption paperwork. Alicia had prepared for an interrogation, but was asked only a few perfunctory questions by a Thai official, before Jesse was handed to her. No fanfare. One moment her arms were empty, the next they were cradling a child. Her child. Her heart leapt at the first touch, and neither Leroy nor his cousin could coax her into looking up for the photos: she couldn't take her eyes off her boy.

Alicia stroked his soft curls. He'd slept the whole time since they'd collected him, but she supposed this was normal. In his sleep he gripped the finger she placed against the palm of his hand and turned his face towards her, as if he were the one claiming her.

There were a few more layers of bureaucracy to get through before they could take him home. Jesse's passport wouldn't be available until the following afternoon—it would be issued in his Thai name, Theera Meemulthong— and they had to take this and all the other paperwork to the US Embassy in Bangkok so Jesse could be issued with an immigration visa.

Alicia had waited ten years to have a child. Waiting another week or two before they could leave Thailand shouldn't seem like much, but she was done with waiting. She wanted to take him home.

She looked from the baby in her lap to her husband and back again. She hadn't anticipated how it would feel to have a child who, to the uninformed observer, looked like he could be the offspring of one of them but not both.

Jesse didn't look like her. He didn't look much like Leroy either, but there was something similar about the shape of their mouths, the way their jaws were set. Would people think Jesse was Leroy's son, the product of a previous relationship, and assume Alicia was his stepmother?

She looked again at her finger in Jesse's fist and leaned forward to smell the top of his head. Plenty of women had children who took after their fathers and bore no resemblance to them. Alicia would love Jesse so fiercely no one would doubt he was her son.

The taxi came to a halt.

‘We're here,' Leroy said. ‘Need a hand?'

She shook her head. ‘I can manage the baby if you get our things.'

He nodded and took out his wallet as the driver opened her door.

Alicia carefully released her seatbelt. She placed the baby against her chest so his head was resting against her shoulder and eased herself out of the air-conditioned car.

The sudden change in temperature made her break out in a sweat and she hastened to the foyer of their hotel.

‘Good evening sir, madam,' the receptionist said.

‘Welcome to the Suriya Hotel. Will you need a cot for your baby?'

Your baby
. Music to Alicia's ears.

‘That's okay,' she said, ‘he'll sleep with us.'

Alicia hadn't discussed this with Leroy. If he'd asked her earlier in the day about a cot, she would've chastised him for not having organised it already. But there was no way Alicia could leave Jesse to sleep alone in a cot. She would hold him all through the night so he would wake up knowing how much he was loved.

Leroy took the room key and they made their way to the elevator. Jesse slumped warm against Alicia's chest. Leroy rustled plastic bags filled with disposable diapers, wipes, infant formula, plastic bottles, teats, pacifiers, creams and lotions. They stepped inside. He pushed the button for the fifth floor and the doors closed. Alicia turned around to face the mirrored wall at the back of the elevator. She touched her husband lightly on the shoulder and Leroy turned around to see her pointing at their reflection. They didn't need to speak. They both knew what the other was thinking. They'd almost lost hope of ever seeing this, but there they were.

A family.

22

J
ayne stepped inside the gate to the sound of wailing. She thought at first it was coming from the orphanage and groaned. All she needed after a big night was howling babies on top of the shit and piss. But it wasn't coming from the orphanage and it wasn't a baby crying. These were the gut-wrenching screams of a grown woman and they were coming from inside the administration building.

Jayne saw Mayuree come running out the door and along the path towards the gate, her face contorted with grief. Frank Harding appeared in her wake, but didn't run after her. Mayuree was too distressed to notice Jayne and almost knocked over the guard in her haste to get out.

‘What on earth was that about?' Jayne said, staring after her.

Frank's face was grim. ‘Her son, one of the boarders, passed away during the night.'

Jayne felt lead in the pit of her stomach, her skin flushed cold then hot in an instant.

‘
What
?' she gasped. ‘How did it happen?'

Frank glanced at his watch. ‘I'm sorry Jayne. I haven't got time to go into this now. You'll appreciate there are things I have to do…'

‘Of course.'

‘There'll be a briefing in my office at one o'clock. Would you please ask all the volunteers to be there?'

Jayne nodded and headed towards the orphanage in a daze. She couldn't imagine what Mayuree must be going through. How could a little boy who'd seemed healthy when she glimpsed him on Monday be dead by Thursday?

The thought stopped Jayne in her tracks. It didn't make sense. Babies didn't die like this in Thailand, at least not in urban centres like Pattaya whilst in the care of well-funded institutions. Christ, if you could get fondue in Pattaya surely a sick child could get decent healthcare, even if the parents couldn't afford it. Wasn't that why they put their kids into institutions in the first place?

She glanced at her watch. Almost five hours until the briefing. She sighed and opened the door.

A loud cry greeted her, as if the news of Kob's death had filtered through to one of the children. It was Dianne's charge, Sin, protesting at getting dressed.

‘Come on,' Dianne said, slipping a sundress over the toddler's head, ‘you'll look so pretty in this nice dress. Oh, hi Jayne. How are you this fine morning?'

Clearly she hadn't been apprised of recent developments.

Frank had said to ask the volunteers to a briefing. It wasn't her job to tell them why.

‘I'm okay.' She fossicked around in her handbag for some painkillers but came up empty handed. ‘You don't have any Panadol on you?'

‘Oh no, I try not to take drugs,' Dianne said.

They're not drugs, they're
medicine
, Jayne wanted to say. Then she had a thought that helped ease the pain.

‘My stomach's a bit off this morning,' she said to Dianne.

‘Any chance you could give me a hand and deal with some of the more disgusting nappies?'

The young woman's smile faltered ever so slightly. ‘No worries.'

‘Thanks,' Jayne smiled.

Mayuree was supposed to be sent to his office at the
other
compound where Doctor Somsri was waiting to inform her of her son's death. Thanks to his easily intimidated receptionist, Frank had to deal with the hysterical woman himself. He'd tried to put his counselling skills to good use.

But Mayuree took it badly. She wouldn't listen to what he had to say about Kob going to a better place. She just kept howling and demanding to see the child's body. Frank had never seen a Thai person behave so badly.

In the end he summoned Somsri and let him explain why the child's body had been hastily cremated. He was a doctor and he was Thai. A woman like Mayuree couldn't question his authority.

Perhaps it was a case of once bitten, twice shy— Maryanne Delbeck's legacy—but Frank decided to invite the doctor back to attend the briefing with the volunteers just in case anyone else got emotional.

Somsri was already seated when they filed in: Hilde, Marion, James, Dianne and Jayne. Frank gestured for them to take a seat. Hilde, Dianne and Jayne took the couch, a box of tissues on the coffee table in front of them.

‘Most of you know Doctor Somsri,' Frank said, ‘our centre's medical consultant. I've asked Doctor Somsri along today in case you have any questions. It's my sad duty to inform you all that one of the boarders passed away last night.'

Hilde and Marion gasped in concert and James crossed himself.

‘Which baby?' Dianne asked.

‘His name was Kob,' Frank said, ‘boy, just under a year old. Been with us about three months.'

‘What happened?' said Marion, tearing up.

‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,' Frank said.

‘As I tried to explain to the mother, little Kob has gone to a better place.'

‘As Jesus said, “Suffer the children to come unto me for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”'

Frank gave James an approving nod. Dianne joined Hilde in reaching for tissues to dab their eyes. Jayne bowed her head, keeping her emotions in check.

‘It's only human to feel upset,' Frank said. ‘But as people of faith we must rejoice in Kob's eternal salvation.'

No one said anything for a moment; the women sniffled.

‘How?' Jayne asked. ‘How did the baby die?'

Frank gave Somsri his cue.

‘Let me try to explain, Khun—?'

‘Jayne.'

‘Well, Khun Jayne, despite our best efforts, we do lose children placed in our care from time to time. Many are the offspring of uneducated country girls who don't know enough about their bodies to protect themselves from getting pregnant in the first place. They expose their unborn babies to sexually transmissible infections such as syphilis and gonorrhoea, not to mention AIDS, which contributes significantly to increased morbidity and mortality rates in their offspring.'

He leaned forward, smiling in the unique way of Thai people imparting unpleasant information. ‘That is, their babies get sick and die.'

He sat back. Dianne nodded, still sniffling. Jayne said nothing.

‘On top of this, by the time some babies reach us, they've been sick for a long time. Their mothers are more likely to take a sick child to a spirit doctor than a hospital. Maybe they visit a drugstore, but this often leads to misdiagnosis and treatment, resulting in iatrogenic complications.'

He leaned forward once more. ‘That is, problems caused by the treatment itself.'

Dianne nodded again and clutched Jayne by the hand.

‘Kidney failure is the most common. By the time we see the babies, it's often too late to provide anything other than palliative care—to care for them until they die.'

‘Excuse me for asking, Doctor,' Jayne said, ‘but there's a clinic within the nursery compound. Don't you test and treat all the children there?'

‘We do, we do,' Somsri nodded. ‘And we often make real progress. But then the family come to visit and insist on taking the child off for a weekend. Suddenly the treatment regime is disrupted and we are worse off than when we started because the child is now at risk of developing drug resistance.'

‘Excuse me again, Doctor, but I want to understand correctly. Are these the problems that caused Kob's death?'

‘Ah, I have been speaking generally, but now I will be specific.' Somsri leaned forward to address Jayne directly.

‘His was a special case. That baby had
sickle-cell anaemia
.

It's a condition we see a lot in the offspring of African-Americans. That and AIDS, of course.'

‘Is it contagious?' Marion gasped.

‘As a precaution, we expedited the cremation of the body,' the doctor said. ‘You can rest assured there is no risk of infection to yourself or anyone else associated with the orphanage.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I guarantee it. I was called to sign the death certificate and saw to the infection control personally.'