The Cave Dweller

It was the eating of the durian in my living room that finally put the tin hat on things. After months of ‘mai pen rai’ I finally flipped and now something had to be done. For those unfamiliar with durian, all I can say is that you are the lucky ones. This fruit reeks to high heaven. Self-respecting hotels will not allow it on the premises. You will get thrown off a flight if you try to bring it on a plane. You will never get the smell of it out of your car or off your clothes. The smell of it is thoroughly disgusting. Asians however, seem to love it and will gorge themselves on it at every opportunity. Why am I not surprised?

She was back. She had been back for a few months already and it looked more and more like she was taking root. I knew there would be no mileage in discussing this with the wife, so in good ol’ time honoured Thai style, I just put up and shut up. Yai, the wife’s mother would be staying for as long it suited her and I would have no say in the matter. Any enquiry about when she might be going home was always met with an icy stare from the wife. This was one subject that was definitely not open for discussion. Some battles are worth fighting…… It is important to explain here about the way the Thais worship their elders. Old buggers are revered…..nay, worshiped in this country. Not just by the immediate family but by every Thai person.

Full grown adults lie on their bellies and grovel and squirm in front of the oldies, such is their eminence. They are afforded this adoration not because they are gentle and wise and the font of all knowledge and strength but just because they are old. Me, I have more self-respect. I don’t do groveling and squirming, except for when I really have to. Before I met Yai, the oldest person I had ever known was my granddad. He died in 1970 at the age of 74. He had survived the trenches in The Great War, spent the inter-war years working as a trawler man and as a merchant seaman in World War II got sunk twice in the North Atlantic by German U-boats. He had seen a thing or two and although he was a cantankerous old sod, as a child I had a world of respect for him. Yai, on the other hand is estimated to be somewhere between eighty and ninety years old. I say estimated because, she has no idea when she was born.

All of her friends are dead now so we can’t ask them. And Yai, being born and raised in the Isaan has seen and done nothing. In all of those eighty or ninety years she has just existed. First she existed to bring up the kids, then she existed to have the kids look after her, which they do now. She doesn’t know a word of English. She doesn’t even speak Thai. She speaks some North East dialect that to me sounds like, “doo-do-boo-do-ghin khao-boo-doo-ab nam-bo-doo-do“. Her family seems to be able to communicate with her though. She sits exclusively on the floor. She sleeps and eats on the floor like some cave-dweller. She spends most of her time on the floor in the back yard. I bought a large garden bench that I thought might make her a bit more comfortable. She has never sat on it. She has sat on the ground next to it and crawled under it once when it rained so I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of money. The daft old git saves rubbish. She saves plastic bottles, glass bottles and tin cans. Not out of some desire to save the planet but because she can sell this junk when she has collected enough of it. She can get 130 baht for a single truckload of plastic bottles. She has turned my back yard into a rubbish tip.

The wife wanted to take her out for lunch recently so we went to a local restaurant where they do a version of Isaan food. When the old crow realized she had to sit at a table she made a scene and rather than let her eat off the floor in the restaurant I ordered her scrawny arse back to the car and we went home. She survives on a daily diet of steamed fish and whatever that stuff is that they eat in Isaan that smells like socks. For fun, she grinds up beetle nuts with a small pestle and mortar and spits the red slime out into one of the tin cans she’s been saving. She’s a real delight to have around the house.

She has to see the doctor next week. My wife says she is just having a check-up before she goes home to Isaan at the end of the month. Inspite of her age, there doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with her. She might look like she’s lost her marbles but I don’t think she had any to begin with. So maybe that’s the secret of longevity. Eat only fish and durian, drink only rain water and never sit in a chair. My wife, of course loves the old goat unconditionally and she knows she is in the twilight of her days.

I don’t wish her any harm but I’d just prefer it if she lived somewhere else.

Union Hill

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