CHAPTER 42
"Go through these bags and boxes, Tom. Check what there is. Those that you think are of a quality worthy of public exhibition, please put them into this empty bag. But we will take only thirty."
"Are you not going to help, Jim? Surely the artist himself should decide."
"No, the decision is yours. I have something else to do. I will be gone for about an hour. When I return we will drive to the town."
In the bright, warm, morning sun, Tom took Jim's dusty boxes and bags outside to sit and sort them. Bearing in mind that Jim had sat under a mango tree to create them, they were all, in Tom's unprofessional opinion, masterpieces. And each had a certain unique touch - two birds, two flowers, two trees, an old lady and an old man, a cockerel and hen, a hen and a chicken, a snake coiled around eggs with a small snake emerging, And there were abstracts, too - sunrises and sunsets - colourful bands of pink, purple, orange, blue and grey, some with a black silhouette of a single coconut palm or banana tree leaf intruding into the picture. Selecting just thirty was hard.
Jim had been gone an hour. Tom had watched him walk off, leaving the motorcycle propped beneath the house. He had disappeared between the trees behind the house where the hill started and rose gradually to somewhere out of sight.
For Jim, the track was well worn by his own feet. He now knew every bend, every rock, every tree, every fallen branch. At the top, it ended in a small clearing, dominated by a single, high rock that looked over the tree tops to the east on one side and to the west on the other. To the south flowed the River Kwai that, during the rainy season, was high and wide. At other times, as now, it was barely visible through the trees. It was the view of sunsets and sunrises from here that had inspired Jim's abstract paintings. The rock itself was difficult to access. After rain it was wet, slippery, dangerous. This morning it was dry and easy going, but he still had to scramble, almost crawl to the very top. Once there it was bare and flat, with just a few wide cracks giving root holds for shrubs and grass. He was out of breath when he arrived. His heart pounded and he knew he was pushing himself too hard. But he made it, staggered the few final yards to the pinnacle and slumped down.
He may have sat there for an hour or more, but time on that rock meant nothing. He sat cross-legged, his thin, brown legs drawn underneath him, his hands in his lap and his grey hair blowing in the cool breeze from the west. He closed his eyes, smelled the air, listened to the wind and the sounds of small birds in the treetops and felt the soft breeze on his skin.
"This is my place, Margaret. This is where I come to find peace and tranquillity. It is like nowhere else I have ever been and no-one comes here except me. Perhaps others found it once but they have never returned. But do you see the wildness below? This is how it has been for thousands of years. It is untouched by humans. It is as it always was - untainted by money, by selfish greed, by hypocrisy, by jealousy or by any other human weakness. There is no anger here, Margaret. There is no pushing or shoving, no envy, no fighting over land or space. Instead it is a place of utter peace.
"Sometimes, I find it difficult to tear myself away, even to return to my house down below. It is timeless here. I hear the wind in the trees and the birds. I smell the air, the ground, the damp leaves, the dryness, the rain, the scent of flowers in the tree tops. It is a strange but a most exhilarating experience because, with my eyes closed, I feel as if I am travelling somewhere, though I know not where or how.
"And sometimes I feel I am about to fall, to crash. And when that happens I open my eyes and look up into the sky where I have been flying and what do I see? I see endless time. I see me. I see myself as just an insignificant part of everything else that is around me, like a tiny fragment of cosmic dust. And I find that so comforting. I am, you see, made up of just small particles of matter, organized into a single living unit. And that unit, my body and my mind, is merely obeying basic laws of chemistry and physics. The simplicity is what matters because it explains everything.
"But sometimes, Margaret, my thoughts lead me into areas where I still struggle for explanations. What puzzles me most is the working of my own mind. I know my mind is what dictates opinion, belief, anger and affection, and I know that this is just an evolutionary advance on what dictates the migration of birds, the movement of animals and shoals of fish and the chemical intelligence of ants, but I still struggle with explanations of anger and revenge. Are they just human characteristics? Are they strengths for which we should be proud, or are they weaknesses for which we should feel ashamed. Unfortunately I suspect they are merely characteristics that have enabled the human species to dominate over others. But it is still pretty shameful, don't you think?
"And there is another feeling that is very personal. For a while, I did not understand the suggestion that I was incompetent and had failed because I had not thought of myself as a failure. But I am a sensitive and thoughtful man who listens to the opinions of others. That stigma of failure and incompetence has stalked me like a dark shadow for too long and I have to address it before it is too late. The time to act is now."
Jim's eyes were still firmly shut. He stretched his arms above his head, moved them in circles behind his back with his hands and fingers held taught. He drew his legs out from under him and one by one stretched and moved them in a circle upwards and outwards from his hips feeling the pain in every muscle, every tendon and every fibre. Finally, he settled again with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. Then he opened his eyes, looked around and smiled.
"It's a bit like a church here, mother - like the village church where you used to drag me as a boy to arrange the flowers around the pulpit. But it is also like a temple in that when I'm here I feel vulnerable and insignificant with an overwhelming feeling of total loneliness as if I've been carried to a world devoid of other men. It is a very peaceful world, mother. I like it. I admit I have whimpered a little here, because I felt so alone, but I have also felt strong and totally content because I was alone. And I am at my most content when my mood allows me to see my own body and my life as just one small fragment. Death seems so insignificant when viewed like that. This is a much more dangerous place than the village church, though mother, because sometimes I feel I want to jump from this rock. It would be so simple, one day, just to lean forward and topple."
Then he stood up, rubbed his aching legs and started the easier and quicker walk back down to the house where Tom was already waiting.
"We must go, Tom. You are leaving for London and Dublin tomorrow?"
"Yes, I must return to Bangkok tonight."
"Then I will meet you in London. If you are willing to help, then I guarantee you a story."