Everyone Burns by John Dolan Read Free Book Online Page B

reach the garden he stops and turns to me.
    “Is your mind clearer now?”
    “Much clearer.”
    “It can be better not to talk. Sometimes words can mislead.”
    “Yes.”
    “And did you hear?”
    “Hear what?”
    “Did you hear the sound of one hand clapping?”
    “No.”
    He shakes his head. “That is because you listen only with your ears.”
     
    *       *       *       *       *
     
    Now it’s later, it’s quiet apart from the distant boom of dance music, and I’m alone in my office. Night has dropped over the island like a wizard’s cloak. I’m seated at my desk, finishing my second whisky, looking at the framed photograph of my flame-haired wife and flame-haired teenage daughter. The picture is about ten years old, taken on holiday with a backdrop of Balinese rice terraces. I can almost smell the happiness mingling with the scent of frangipani. I light a Marlboro and reflect on the events of the last few hours.
    The day was all downhill after my meeting with the Old Monk. To appreciate why that was the case, it is necessary to understand a little of my history and the way I go about my business.
    When someone reads my somewhat lurid advertisements and billboards – which are designed to sow the seeds of doubt in the farang mind as to the fidelity of his new girlfriend – that someone may well conclude that I am offering my services as a private investigator. So far, so good. They are intended to create that impression. However, nowhere will the reader find the words private investigator or detective on any of my hoardings or literature, and that is for a very good reason. I am unregistered, and have no PI licence or qualifications. Unless you consider the two-week course I did over the internet, and my library of Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler and Conan Doyle as sufficient evidence of professional standing, you would have to conclude I am not a suitable applicant for the status of PI Registered Practitioner. And you would be right. You may suppose, therefore, with some reason that my investigations business operates in something of a legal grey area. As to why I chose this way of making a living for the first time on my arrival in Samui – having previously run car dealerships and import-export and property businesses – is a tale which will have to keep for another time. For now, let’s just say I was ready for a change. As are many who wash up on these shores.
    Furthermore, i f you are curious at this point about my qualifications to act as a therapist, I should perhaps enlighten you that in the UK, hypno therapy is a largely unregulated profession, and a three-week course will avail you of the relevant certificates to frame and hang on the walls of your consulting room. Take out some readily-available insurance, print some business cards, and, voilà, you’re away. Just don’t call yourself doctor or sleep with your clients.
    However, while a couple of courses and some marketing bumph may get you into these businesses, they will not keep you in business – as many less-successful impostors in Thailand have discovered. For me, the threat of unmasking as an unqualified fraud has receded with time. The longer you go on playing a role, the more it becomes you: and one day you wake up and discover you are in fact the person you have been pretending to be. Nor are my dual identities as PI and therapist as diverse as they appear to be. The thriving PI and the winning therapist share many common features, including the ability to create empathy, to project professionalism and discretion, and to probe and analyse logically. I may be lacking in some relevant paperwork, but these are the types of skills I honed in my years running various businesses, and they have stood me in good stead in my time on the island; along with my obsessive appetite for new experiences, tendency to gallows humour, and my sincerity. As someone once said, sincerity is the single most important human