‘Probably a good thing,’ Pin mumbled to him as she thought of the blow-up between them. She always regretted her behaviour but because Cavalier rolled with the abuse and anger, she didn’t feel the need to apologise.

Cavalier did not recognise their daughter Pon when she made a tearful visit to the hospital. She was so emotional that Pin and the other doctors were not sure that she should make further visits. But Pon insisted on staying with friends in Chiang Mai so that she could be with her father every day.

*

Pin rang Cavalier’s good friend Wombat. She had never quite understood the relationship between this man and her husband, but she knew there was a strong bond between them.

‘That Shaman who saved my daughter,’ she said to Wombat, ‘can I contact him? I want him to help Victor.’

‘Al Haut? He already knows about him. He “prayed into it”.’

‘And?’

‘He knows Victor is out of the coma and on the mend. He told me he had not seen him in the spiritual. He said Victor had not “crossed over” and won’t. God, he claims, made that decision some time ago.’

After a week of daily visits by Pon, Cavalier recognised his daughter. They embraced and both were moved to tears. During the second week, his step-daughter Far, now thirty-seven, flew in from New York to be by his side. Far, much to Cavalier’s pleasure, had become a doctor and married an American heart specialist. His two daughters’ presence brought him great comfort.

After a fortnight there was an improvement.

‘I think he is going to make a fair recovery,’ the main doctor in Cavalier’s Chiang Mai medical team told the family.

19 THE RECOVERY

19

THE RECOVERY

Cavalier concentrated on his rehab. The wound on the side of his head left him with a scar that was mainly covered by hair. The abdominal injury was more problematic but even by the end of the hospital stay he started walking a few kilometres with Pon, who had stayed in Chiang Mai to help in any way she could. Three weeks after leaving the recovery ward, they both did a three-kilometre jog along the River Ping. His gut hurt with every stride.

Pon thought of telling him he should take it easy and wait a few months before commencing any strenuous exercise. But aware of his determination, she joined him for every session, which was therapy for her too.

Within weeks they were jogging four kilometres. After six weeks they were up to a slow jog over his usual ten K, and swimming every day at the pool in his condo. He began adding a forty-minute exercise routine for all body muscles, with a cautious start of sit-ups and press-ups. At this point Pon decided to return to Chiang Rai to be with her mother.

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Cavalier told her at the bus station. ‘You have helped save me!’