The Beach Read online

  ‘How the hell do you do this?’ I muttered.

  Jed looked up from the menu.

  ‘I can’t seem to sit…’

  He started laughing. ‘Does your head in, doesn’t it? All this.’

  ‘It sure does.’

  ‘What about your reflection?’

  ‘… How do you mean?’

  ‘When was the last time you saw your reflection?’

  I shrugged. There was a make-up mirror near the shower hut which the men used for shaving, but it only showed a tiny area of your face at any one time. Apart from that, I hadn’t seen myself for over four weeks.

  ‘There’s a sink and a mirror over there. Go and have a look. You’ll get a real shock.’

  I frowned, suddenly worried. ‘Why? Has something happened to my face?’

  ‘No. Just go and have a look. You’ll see.’

  Shock was right. The person who gazed back at me over the sink was a stranger. My skin was darker than I’d imagined it could possibly get, my black hair had been sun-bleached almost brown and matted into curls, and my teeth were so white they seemed to jump out of my face. I also looked old – twenty-six or twenty-seven – and there were some freckles on my nose. The freckles were a particular shock. I never get freckles.

  I stared at my reflection for five minutes at least, transfixed. I could have stared for an hour if Jed hadn’t called me back to order some food.

  ‘What did you think?’ he asked, as I wandered back to the table, grinning like an idiot.

  ‘Really weird. Why don’t you have a look too? It’s great.’

  ‘No… I haven’t seen myself for six months now. I’m saving up to completely freak myself out.’

  ‘Six months!’

  ‘Uh-huh. Maybe more.’ He tossed me the menu. ‘Come on. What’ll it be? I’m starving.’

  I glanced down the enormous list, pausing on banana pancakes but thinking the better of it.

  ‘I believe I’d like a couple of cheeseburgers.’

  ‘Cheeseburgers. Anything else?’

  ‘Uh… OK. Spicy chicken noodles too. We’re in Thailand, after all.’

  Jed stood up, glancing over his shoulder towards the sunbathers on the beach. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said dryly, then went to place our order.

  While we waited for our food we watched TV. There was a video at the far end of the café and it was playing Schindler’s List. Schindler was on a horse watching the ghettos being emptied, and he’d noticed a little girl in a red coat.

  ‘How about that coat?’ Jed asked, sipping his Coke.

  I sipped my Sprite. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Do you reckon they painted it on the film with a brush?’

  ‘On each frame? Like animation?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘No way. They would have done it with a computer, like Jurassic Park.’

  ‘Oh…’ Jed drained the bottle and smacked his lips. ‘It’s the real thing.’

  I frowned. ‘Schindler’s List?’

  ‘No, you twerp. Coke.’

  The food must have taken ages because by the time it arrived, Schindler was looking at the red coat again. If you’ve seen the film you’ll know that’s an hour after he first sees it, if not more. Luckily, I discovered that the café had an old Space Invaders machine, so for me the waiting wasn’t so bad.

  Kampuchea

  Jed gave me a choice. I could go with him to sort out the rice or I could stay on the beach and meet him later. He didn’t really need my help so I decided to stay. In any case, I had my own shopping to do. I wanted to restock my supply of cigarettes and get more batteries for Keaty’s Gameboy.

  In one of the other Hat Rin cafés I found a shop – or a glass counter with a few goods beneath it – and after buying the batteries and cigarettes it turned out I still had plenty of money left to get a few presents.

  First of all I bought some soap for Unhygienix. That was tricky because they had several varieties – some western, some Thai, but none of them the brand I’d seen Unhygienix using. I rummaged through the bars for a while before finding one called ‘Luxume’. It said it was ‘Luxuriant yet perfumed’. The ‘yet’ turned my head and the ‘perfumed’ clinched it, knowing how important this was to him.

  Then I bought a load of razors, which I thought I’d share out between me, Étienne, Gregorio and Keaty. Then I bought a tube of Colgate for Françoise. Nobody used toothpaste on the beach; there were ten toothbrushes which were shared by everyone, although many couldn’t be bothered and just chewed a twig each morning. Françoise didn’t mind sharing a toothbrush but she did miss the toothpaste, so I knew she’d appreciate the gift.

  The next purchase was several packets of boiled sweets – I didn’t want anybody to go empty-handed – and finally I bought a pair of shorts. Mine were getting ragged and I couldn’t see them lasting more than a month or two.

  With my shopping done I had nothing left to do. I had another Sprite, which didn’t last long, so I decided to pass the time by walking the length of Hat Rin. After only a few hundred metres I gave up. There was nothing much to see apart from beach huts. Instead, I sat myself down on the sand and paddled my feet in the water, imagining the warm reactions I’d get when I handed out my presents. I envisaged an Asterix-style scene, returning from the adventure to a huge feast. We’d have to do without wild boars and Gaulish wine, but we’d have plenty of dope and more rice than you could shake a stick at.

  ‘Saigon,’ said a male voice, and broke me straight out of my day-dreaming. ‘Mad.’

  ‘Sounds it,’ said another voice, female.

  ‘We were there two months. The place is like Bangkok ten fuckin’ years ago. Probably better.’

  I looked round and saw four sunbathers. Two girls, English, and two boys, Australians. All of them were talking very loudly, so loudly it was like their conversation was aimed more at passers-by than each other.

  ‘Yeah, but if Saigon was mad, then Kampuchea was fuckin’ unreal.’

  This was the second Aussie speaking – a skinny guy with very cropped hair, long sideburns, and a tiny patch of beard on his chin.

  ‘We were there for six weeks. Would have stayed longer but we ran out of cash. Had to get back to Thailand to pick up a fuckin’ wire.’

  ‘Good scene,’ the first agreed. ‘Could have stayed six months.’

  ‘Could have stayed six years.’

  I looked back to the sea. It was a familiar enough exchange, I thought to myself, and not worth tuning in to. But then I found that I couldn’t tune it out. It wasn’t the volume of their chattering; I was intrigued that the guy had been talking about Kampuchea. I wondered if this was the new term for Cambodia.

  Without thinking it over any more than that, I leant towards them. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Out of interest, why do you call Cambodia Kampuchea?’

  All four faces looked at me.

  ‘I mean,’ I continued, ‘it’s Cambodia, right?’

  The second Aussie shook his head, not like he was disagreeing with me, like he was trying to figure out who I was.

  ‘It’s Cambodia, right?’ I repeated, in case he hadn’t heard me.

  ‘Kampuchea. I’ve just been there.’

  I got up and walked over. ‘But called Kampuchea by who?’

  ‘Cambodians.’

  ‘Not Kampucheans, then.’

  He frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just interested to hear how you picked up the word “Kampuchea”.’

  ‘Mate,’ the first Aussie interrupted, ‘why does it matter what we call Kampuchea?’

  ‘It isn’t that it matters. I was just interested because I thought Kampuchea was a Khmer Rouge name. I mean, I’m probably wrong. Maybe it’s just the old-fashioned name for Cambodia, but…’

  The sentence trailed off. I was suddenly aware that all four of them were looking at me as though they thought I was insane. I smiled uncertainly. ‘It isn’t a big deal… I was interested, that’s all… Kampuchea… It sounded strange�
��’

  Silence.

  I began to feel myself blushing. I knew I’d made some kind of faux pas but I didn’t know what it might be. With my smile getting increasingly desperate I tried to explain myself better, but my confusion and nervousness only made things worse. ‘I was just sitting over there and you said “Kampuchea”, which I thought was a Khmer Rouge name, but you also used the old name of Ho Chi Minh City… Saigon… Not that I’m making a parallel between the VC and the Khmer Rouge, obviously… but…’

  ‘So what?’

  This was a fair point. I considered it for a couple of seconds, then said, ‘So nothing, I guess…’

  ‘Then why are you bothering us, mate?’

  I couldn’t think what to say. I shrugged awkwardly and turned to walk back to my shopping bag, and behind me I heard one of them mutter, ‘Another fuckin’ space-head. Can’t move for them, man.’ The comment made my ears burn and the tips of my fingers tingle. I hadn’t had that feeling since I was a little kid.

  When I sat back down I felt terrible. My good mood was completely gone. I couldn’t understand what I’d said that was so wrong. All I’d been doing was joining in their conversation, which didn’t seem like such a terrible thing to do. It was the beach and the World, I decided coldly. My beach, where you could walk into a conversation at any time between anybody, and the World, where you couldn’t.

  A few minutes later I got up to go. I’d noticed that their talking had become quieter and I had the miserable feeling that they were talking about me. I found a suitably secluded palm tree a short way up the beach and settled beneath it. I’d arranged to meet Jed at seven, back at the café where we’d eaten lunch, so I still had a few hours to kill. Too many hours. The wait was beginning to feel like it might be an ordeal.

  I chain-smoked two and a half cigarettes. I wanted to chain-smoke three, or even more, but the third gave me a five-minute coughing fit. Reluctantly I stubbed it out and pushed it into the sand.

  My embarrassment had turned quickly to anger. Before I’d been looking at Hat Rin with a detached curiosity, and now I was looking at it with hatred. I could sense shit all around me; Thais smiling like sharks, and careless hedonism, too diligently pursued to ring true. Most of all, I could pick up the scent of decay. It hung over Hat Rin like the sandflies that hung over the sunbathers, zoning in on the smell of sweat and sweet tanning lotion. The serious travellers had already moved on to the next island in the chain, the intermediate travellers were wondering where all the life had gone, and the tourist hordes were ready to descend on their freshly beaten track.

  For the first time I understood the true preciousness of our hidden beach. To imagine Hat Rin’s fate unfolding in the lagoon made my blood run cold. I began scanning the dark bodies that lounged around me as if I were photographing the enemy, familiarizing myself with the images, filing them away. Occasionally couples walked near me and I caught snatches of their conversations. I must have heard twenty different accents and languages. Most I didn’t understand, but they all sounded like threats.

  Time dragged with only these thoughts for company, so when my eyes grew heavy I let them close. The heat and the day’s early start had caught up with me. An afternoon siesta would be a welcome retreat.

  Blame

  The music started up at eight, which was lucky, or I might have slept until midnight. Up and down the beach, four or five different sound systems blasted out, each with its own agenda. I could only hear two clearly, the ones on either side of me, but all the bass lines seemed to be vibrating through my head. Swearing and rubbing the daze out of my eyes, I jumped up and ran back down the beach to the café.

  The café was now packed with people but I spotted Jed immediately. He was by the same table we’d sat at earlier. He had a bottle of beer in his hands and was looking extremely pissed off.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he said angrily, when I sat beside him. ‘I’ve been waiting.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I replied. ‘I fell asleep… I’ve had a bad day.’

  ‘You did, huh? Well I’ll just bet it wasn’t a patch on mine.’

  ‘Why, what happened? Didn’t you get the rice?’

  ‘I got the rice, Richard. Don’t worry about that.’

  I looked at him hard. There was a worrying note of menace in his voice. ‘What then?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Tell you…?’

  ‘About two Yanks.’

  ‘Two Yanks?’

  Jed took a huge gulp of beer. ‘Two Yanks I heard talking about a place called Eden in the marine park.’

  ‘… Oh shit.’

  ‘They know you, Richard. They used your name. And they’ve got a map.’ He squeezed his eyes shut like he was fighting to keep control of his temper. ‘A fucking map, Richard! They were showing it to some Germans! And who knows who else has seen it?’

  I shook my head. I was feeling dazed. ‘… I’d forgotten… I’d…’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Jed, wait. You don’t understand. I didn’t tell them about the beach. They told me. They already knew about it.’

  He put his bottle on the table with a thump. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘… Zeph and Sammy. I met them on Ko Samui.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They were just these two guys in the hut next to mine. We spent some time together, and the night before we were going to leave for Phelong they started talking about the beach.’

  ‘Unprompted?’

  ‘Yes! Of course!’

  ‘So you drew them a map.’

  ‘No! I didn’t say a thing, Jed! None of us did.’

  ‘Then where did the map come from?’

  ‘The next morning… I drew it and pushed it under their door…’I pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it. My hands shook badly and it took me three attempts.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was worried!’

  ‘You just drew them the map? They didn’t even ask for it!’

  ‘I didn’t know if the beach really existed. We could have been aiming at nowhere. I had to tell someone where we were going in case something went wrong.’

  ‘What could go wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know! We didn’t know anything! I just didn’t want us disappearing with nobody knowing where we’d gone!’

  Jed put his head in his hands. ‘This could be bad, Richard.’

  ‘We could have disappeared into the marine park and no one would have…’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I understand that.’

  We sat in silence for several minutes, Jed staring at the table and me looking anywhere but at him. Over by the Space Invaders machine a tubby black girl with corn-rows was trying to hit the last invader. It was moving so fast it was a blur. She missed it on every pass, and just before it reached the bottom line she turned away, disgusted. The sound of talking and music was too loud for me to hear her exploding spaceship, but I saw it on her face.

  Eventually, Jed lifted up his head. ‘These two Yanks. Do you think they’ll make the trip?’

  ‘…They might do, Jed. I don’t know them well enough.’

  ‘Fuck. This could be so bad.’ Then suddenly he reached over and laid his hand on my forearm. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Are you blaming yourself?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Don’t. I’m serious. Whatever happens with these Yanks, it isn’t your fault. If I’d been in your shoes I might have done the same thing.’

  ‘How do you mean, “whatever happens”?’ I said warily.

  ‘I mean… I mean whatever happens I don’t want you to blame yourself. It’s important, Richard. If you really want someone to blame, blame Daffy.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Or me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me.’

  I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but he held up a hand. ‘There’s no point talking about it.’

  ‘OK,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Look, we might not even have a problem. In a few weeks the Yanks will probab
ly be flying off home and the map should go with them. Even if they stay in Thailand there’s a good chance they won’t bother trying to reach us. They seemed like a couple of air-heads, and the trip isn’t easy.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said hollowly, remembering how skilled they were at their surfer act.

  ‘Hoping’s about all we can do. That and wait…’ He finished his beer. ‘We’ve got to get the rice back to the boat tonight because I don’t want to be carrying those sacks in broad daylight. Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stood up. ‘Good. Then let’s get to it.’

  Around the back of the café was a thin passage between two beach huts, and under a tarpaulin were our rice sacks. We put them on the tarpaulin so we could drag them along the sand, and holding a corner each, set off on the long trek back to the boat.

  Just after leaving Hat Rin, we had a fag break and ate a few of the boiled sweets from my bag of presents.

  ‘I’m sorry if I flew off at you,’ Jed said as I passed him the packet.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it.’

  I shrugged. I felt like I did.

  ‘I didn’t ask you why your day was so bad.’

  ‘Oh. It’s nothing… It was just Hat Rin. The place, or the people… They gave me the creeps.’

  ‘Me too. Fucked up, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fucked up… Yeah. It is.’

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When we get back to the camp, don’t mention this thing with the Yanks.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Sal and Bugs. I don’t think they’ll understand.’

  I looked at him but he was busy trying to get the wrapper off one of the sweets.

  ‘… If you think that’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘Yeah. I do.’

  It took us another three hours to get back to the marker. The forked stick showed up clearly in the bright moonlight, and we left the sacks beside it. Then I went to check on the boat while Jed moved the sacks off the tarpaulin and spread it across the sand. It was pitch black under the bushes but I could feel the curved prow. That was enough for me. As long as we had our means of escape, I could relax.