The Clean Shirt

Liv knew Ton was hiding something because he had ironed a white shirt. In three weeks together she had seen him wash a scooter, repair a loose shelf and fall asleep during a conversation. She had never seen him voluntarily introduce heat to clothing.

He said he had a meeting in Patong.

“With who?”

“The owner.”

“Of what?”

“A place.”

This was not a reassuring series of answers. Ton seemed to know that, because he began wiping the already clean screen of his phone.

Liv had met him through friends after a night out. He had an easy laugh, remembered things she said and never asked her to finance an emergency. She had taken that as a promising beginning, then gradually started treating ordinary uncertainty as something she could solve by watching him more closely.

Lately he had been taking calls on the balcony. He had stopped suggesting dinner. Once, when she offered to order food, he said he had eaten, then later asked whether she had any bread.

Tonight he left at six. At seven, a friend sent Liv a photograph from a bar. Ton was in the background, wearing the white shirt, leaning towards a woman.

Liv enlarged it. The woman was smiling. Ton appeared to be listening carefully. Apparently he could do that when properly dressed.

She asked for the location.

By the time she arrived, she had prepared an opening sentence designed to sound calm while giving him very little chance to survive it.

Ton was behind the counter, counting change.

The woman in the photograph pointed to a bottle, then to a space on the shelf. He moved it. She said something Liv could not hear, and he nodded.

He looked up and saw her.

For a second, neither of them moved. Liv had travelled across the island to discover a different secret and now had to decide what to do with the one in front of her.

Ton came round the counter.

“You said meeting,” she said.

“It was. Before.”

It was a trial shift. He had left his last job and had not found another. The balcony calls were enquiries. The dinners had stopped because he could not keep paying for them. He had hoped to tell her once the problem had become a story with an ending.

“I could have paid for dinner,” Liv said.

He looked back at the counter.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

The woman called his name. There were customers waiting. Liv said she would go, then sat at the far end and ordered something simple instead.

Ton served it without performing either gratitude or embarrassment. Half an hour later he carried a bowl of rice behind the counter and ate standing up.

Liv put her phone away.

When he finished, there was a brown splash on the white shirt. He rubbed it with a damp cloth, making it larger.

She nearly offered to wash it. Instead, she asked what time he wanted to eat the following day.

“Before six,” he said.

She opened their chat and changed the dinner booking.