Tactless (part 2, final)

Eventually, Farang M figured out what was going on, and leapt to his own defence. His girlfriend chimed in, too.

'I never send messages or call him when he is in England,' he said, defiantly.

'He never calls anyone,' said farang M's girlfriend helpfully.

At first, however, farang M thought his girlfriend and Mum were gossiping about him.

'I'm a little man, but I get extremely angry when pushed, and you don't want to push me too far,' he growled at his girlfriend.

I urged them to calm down and stop talking about it. In the end we agreed it was a third Bangkok-resident farang - one who does call farang J in England regularly - who let the ugly secret out.

It was safe to blame him, as he wasn't sitting with us, and rarely visits the shop. He also has strained relations with Mum's husband, which made him another easy target to take the blame.

It's also possible that both farang passed on the story to the gullible visitor.

This unpleasant exchange took place almost two weeks ago. Since then, neither farang M nor his girlfriend have returned to the shop. Farang M now drinks at another place he frequents on the opposite side of the Chao Phraya river.

On the phone the other day, he told me that he does not intend to return to Mum's shop.

'We have decided that it's just too much like hard work,' he said.

Farang J still comes to Mum's shop, because his girlfriend helps Mum run the place, at least when he is in Bangkok.

However, if he wants to see farang M, he has to cross the river, as he did last night. Isra does not accompany him on those trips, as she says she does not want to sit listening to two foreigners talking all night.

When they finish drinking over there, farang M and J return together in a taxi - but rather than carry on drinking at Mum's shop, as they used to do, the two of them part ways, and farang M now goes straight home.

I watched as farang J left the taxi last night to join me at Mum's shop, while farang M carried on down the soi back to his home.

I felt sad, because in farang M, I have lost a friend, too. Many is the occasion when we have sat until morning, talking at Mum's shop about nothing more profound than who makes the best chicken soup in the soi.

I do not want to cross the river, as I do not know anyone over there. And when farang J returns home in about a week, I will have few foreigners, if any, to talk to in the small hours.

Farang J blames his own girlfriend for the ugly saga. She lied, after all. However, I blame farang J, for dragging our names into his silly domestic arguments. Can you imagine this exchange taking place between two intelligent, combat-savvy spouses?

'Which of your friends told you? I demand to know!' Isra says angrily.

'Oh, he [names supplied here] did,' says farang J obligingly.

No, no. That's not the way it should go. Whatever happened to healthy rivalry between the sexes? Let's try it again.

'Who told you? I demand to know!' Isra says angrily.

'Leave my friends out of it. The real issue is why you lied,' farang J replies cleverly.

It is through his own ineptitude that farang J, first put at risk my friendship with Mum and Isra - and then succeeded in driving away farang M, a loyal customer of several years.

Mum now regrets what happened. The other night, she told farang J that his outspoken friend was welcome to come back at any time.

'No one feels angry about him, because we are all like family in the end,' she said.

Mum misunderstands. Farang M does not believe he has done anything wrong. He just wants a quiet drink, and thought he could get one at Mum's shop.

He could, too, until stumbling farang J - a mere occasional visitor to these parts, whose lack of tact rivals that of his prospective Thai sister-in-law - came along and ruined everything.