The Half-Child Read Online Free PDF

later. Tell Auntie not to keep dinner for me.’
    He hung up before the old man could rabbit on further and headed for the river. Rajiv toyed with the idea of turning off his phone altogether, but for his relatives who prised their mobiles from their ears only to sleep at night, this would suggest he’d been robbed, kidnapped or left for dead in a gutter. Better to know who was calling and how often, so he could manage any concerns before they became catastrophes.
    Rajiv supposed his relatives were like any minority, always on edge, never trusting the foreign soil beneath their feet. He supposed, too, they derived comfort from their ‘Little India’ in Bangkok’s Pahurat district, where the air smelled of cumin and sandalwood rather than coriander and jasmine; where you ate your curry with chapatti instead of rice; where conversations took place in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi instead of Thai; and where, amongst the bolts of fabric, costume jewellery and kitchen implements, you could make your offerings at shrines dedicated to the elephant-headed Ganesh as well as the Lord Buddha.
    For Rajiv who’d left India in search of adventure, Pahurat was a disappointment. His mother made him promise to visit his family there, and it became their sole topic of conversation each time he phoned home during his first week in Bangkok. She was glad to know he’d arrived safely but had he spoken with Auntie Priti and Uncle Sunder yet? Sightseeing was all very well, but when exactly did he plan to contact his family? Would he guarantee that by the time they next spoke he would have first-hand news of her beloved sister? Rajiv hadn’t planned to let his relatives know he was in the country until the end of his trip when, after a year on the road, he might have welcomed some home cooking and familial banter. But his mother wore him down. Once he met his aunt and uncle, they invited him to stay with them in Pahurat, as they were bound to do, and he accepted their invitation, equally duty bound.
    Not only did they choose to live in Little India, Rajiv’s relatives felt compelled to maintain standards now considered outmoded in the Mother Country—another liability of immigrant life—making them more conservative than the extended family he’d left behind. His cousin-brothers who were not much younger than him had a curfew of ten o’clock.
    His cousin-sisters seldom left Pahurat at all. And while Rajiv was told he could take responsibility for himself, on the rare occasion he stayed out late, Auntie made such a fuss about losing sleep, it hardly seemed worth it.
    The bookshop was Rajiv’s saving grace. Though aware that Khao San Road didn’t resemble the ‘real’ Bangkok any more than Little India did, working at Seema’s got him out from under the family’s constant surveillance, mobile phone notwithstanding, and gave him the chance to explore what kind of a man he might be in another context.
    It turned out he was the kind who dated farang girls. This surprised him. Though a farang girlfriend was considered an essential accessory by most single, male traders on Khao San Road, and a good deal of the married ones, too, Rajiv wouldn’t have guessed he could be such a cliché.
    To be fair, his relationship with Jayne didn’t really fit the norm. For one thing, most Khao San Road romances lasted about as long as it took to shop for souvenirs and arrange a minibus back to the airport. Rajiv had been seeing Jayne for several weeks and he liked her. She was unlike any girl he’d ever met. She lived on her own and did everything for herself. She didn’t even have a cleaner. Rajiv had never met anyone who didn’t have a cleaner. She ran her own business as a private investigator, which Rajiv was sure must be thrilling, despite what she said. Her modesty only made her more attractive.
    She reminded him of ‘Fearless Nadia’, née Mary Evans, a circus performer