Maiyuu would pick the flowers he liked, and take them home. He would lay out newspaper on the floor, then make several floral arrangements for our place - a large vase for the corner of the main room, two small ones for the bed, one for the TV table - as creative in their use of colours and shapes as anything you could find in a florist's shop.
He did all this, as he does most things, without fuss or bother. In fact, he hardly said a word.
After a while, we lost interest in going to the market. These days, Maiyuu concentrates on doing things around the home, while I go out to get the flowers.
The other day, he converted a clock into the base for a lamp, using a paper-mache face mask as the shade.
He took the arms off the clock, then screwed a couple of holes into the plastic base so he could attach the face mask. The lighting comprised a bunch of fairy lights bundled together, which came with their own plug. He put the lights behind the mask, then screwed the mask onto the base.
When it is lit up at night, the light shines through the eyes and mouth holes of the mask, giving an eerie effect.
I can’t do anything so clever with my hands – assuming I could see in a face mask and old clock the potential to convert them into something else.
When he is not making lights or other decorations for the home, Maiyuu likes to cook. The other night, he made rice gruel with mince balls. The day before, he made a dish with mackerel, leaves, and hot sauce.
So, what about my flowers – my contribution to making our place more liveable?
I buy the flowers from a small soi close to my place. Two shops which sit almost side-by-side order roses every day. Because I am a creature of habit, I buy roses from the same shop each time, even when the other place has better stock.
Loyalty has its rewards. When I go to the shop to buy my flowers, I no longer need to say how many I want: it’s always six, because that’s how many I ordered the first couple of times. I will just specify the colour.
Some days its deep red roses, other days pink. Once I made the mistake of buying flowers which Thais buy specifically to paying tribute to Lord Buddha. No one laughed or complained.
At the shop, I can be served by a woman in her 20s (the daughter), a woman in her 50s (Mum) or a woman in her 70s (the grandmother). They all know that the farang likes to buy six roses.
They cut off the stems, wrap them in newspaper, and put a rubber-band around them. If the flowers look a bid sad, sometimes they give me a discount.
As I walk back home through the market, people on the street give me curious looks. ‘I wonder who the farang has bought them for’ they seem to be thinking.
I take the flowers home, and put them in a tall glass. ‘Don’t add too much water, or they will die quickly,’ says Maiyuu.
Every couple of days, I complain that the roses, which sit on a glass table next to his bed, are dying again.
‘It’s because you put in too much water!’ he says.
As I sat beside him the other night, watching him make his new lamp, I marvelled how, as people, we are made so differently.
As he screwed a hole in the plastic base with the sharp end of a pair of scissors, I heard a plopping sound.
A large petal had just fallen off one of my roses, which looked droopy and brown around the edges.
Ah…time for me to make my little contribution to making our home look more beautiful.
The next day I went out to buy a new bunch of red roses, which are sitting tall on the table next to my boyfriend’s bed.
His new face-mask lamp is now working. It sits on the floor next to Maiyuu’s bed.
It will last much longer than my next bunch of roses – no matter how fresh they look, or much water I put them in.
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