The Beach Read online

  Within a few strokes I understood that the passage was not the one leading back to the original cave. It twisted almost immediately to the right, whereas the other passage was virtually straight. But I was also confident, so I didn’t attempt to turn back. Ten or so metres along we found a second air pocket, and ten metres further we found another. At the last air pocket we came up into fresh air. Ahead was the exit, circled by darkness. Through it I could see real stars and the real sky, just bright enough to pick out the faint black shapes of palm trees. Claws on pencil arms, running along the cliff top as it curved around to the mainland.

  I laid the exhausted Christo out on the flat shelf beneath the lightning-bolt fissure, and walked forward a couple of steps, so I was looking over the coral gardens.

  ‘Mister Duck?’ I hissed softly. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You’re here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mister Duck replied, from so near by it made me jump. ‘I’m here.’

  INCOMING

  Politics

  ‘Damn,’ I said, spotting Cassie. She was standing near the kitchen hut, talking to Ella. It meant I had no choice but to pass her. My only other options were to walk directly across the centre of the clearing or to skirt around and come from behind the longhouse. In other words, passing Bugs or passing Sal. Not really options at all.

  I sighed. Getting from one side of the clearing to the other had become like an eye-contact obstacle course. It was true that the shark attack had distracted attention away from the flare-up in the longhouse, but although an unspoken truce had been agreed, the tensions behind the incident were still there. Tactically, I had to hand it to Bugs. His group – basically the carpenters and Jean’s gardeners minus Cassie and Jesse – had taken over the centre of the clearing. Starting from the first afternoon after the shark attack, I’d come back from the island to find them all sitting there in a loose circle, smoking dope and chatting quietly. So as well as the commanding vantage point they had over the camp, there was a psychological aspect. It was like they represented the establishment, making the rest of us feel like dissenters.

  Our dissenter role was accentuated by the fact that, unlike the Bugs group, we had no sense of unity. In effect, we were several sub-groups. There was my old fishing detail and Keaty, which I included myself in, but there was also Jed, and I included myself with him as well. Then there was Moshe’s detail, who seemed uncertain of where their affiliations lay, and there were the cooks. The cooks, as a result of Ella, partly included Jesse and Cassie. But you could also partly include Jesse and Cassie with my old fishing detail, because of their friendship with Keaty.

  Finally, there were Sal and Karl. Karl was a law unto himself, drifting somewhere in outer space, and Sal was trying extremely hard to appear neutral – though we all knew where her loyalties would lie if push came to shove.

  If it sounds complicated, that’s because it was.

  This, then, was the politics involved in crossing the clearing, and we all had to deal with it to the same degree. Except me, that is, who had an extra burden to deal with in the form of Cassie. Ever since the incident when Bugs had shat himself, she’d been treating me like I was mentally unstable, talking slowly, carefully enunciating each word, using an evenly modulated tone as if she thought a sudden noise would scare me. It was really getting on my nerves. But I’d have shinned up a rocket-ship tree to have avoided passing Bugs, and Sal would make me give her a troublesome report on our guests on the neighbouring island, so Cassie it had to be. Biting my lip and looking intently at the ground, I moved out from behind the foliage and set off in her direction. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that she was deep in conversation with Ella. ‘I’m going to make it,’ I thought optimistically, but I was wrong.

  ‘Richard,’ she said, just as I was about to move out of her range.

  I looked up with a studiously blank expression.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I replied quickly. ‘On my way to see the patient.’

  She smiled. ‘No, Richard, I mean, how are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I repeated.

  ‘I think this has been harder for you than anyone.’

  ‘Oh well, not really.’

  ‘Finding Christo…’

  ‘It wasn’t so bad…’

  ‘… And now you have to work up on the island without company, without… support.’

  I shrugged helplessly. It would have been quite impossible to explain that, from my point of view, the three days since Sten’s death had been great. Jed’s knowledge of first aid meant he was spending all his time looking after Christo, and that meant I got to spend my days alone in the DMZ.

  Alone in a manner of speaking, anyway.

  ‘But maybe being without company is a good thing, Cassie. It gives me time to think and come to terms with what’s happened.’ From similar encounters, I knew this was the right thing to say.

  Cassie widened her eyes as if she hadn’t considered this, but now that she had, yes, it was a good idea and she was impressed I’d thought of it. ‘That’s a positive attitude,’ she said warmly. ‘Well done.’

  I felt that was enough for me to disappear without appearing rude, so I made my excuses and continued on my way.

  I was aiming for the hospital tent. More accurately, the Swedes’ tent, but seeing as Sten was dead and Karl had started living on the beach, I’d begun calling it the hospital tent. Disappointingly, no one else did. Even though I’d made a point of using the new name at every opportunity, it had stubbornly refused to catch on.

  ‘Back early today,’ said Jed, when I climbed in. ‘It’s still light.’ He sounded very tired and was sweating like a pig. It was baking under the canvas, even with the flap pegged open.

  ‘Got hungry, needed a fag. Nothing much going on.’

  ‘No developments then.’

  I looked at Christo.

  ‘He’s asleep. It’s OK.’

  ‘Oh… well, yeah, no developments.’ I lied. There had been a very particular development, but not one I could go into. ‘Just the same as always.’

  ‘So we’re lucky again. I wonder how long it will last.’

  ‘Mmm… I got some more grass by the way.’

  ‘More? Richard, you…’ Jed shook his head. ‘…We’ve got grass coming out of our ears. Every day you’ve brought some back.’

  ‘People are smoking a lot at the moment.’

  ‘We’d need all the hippies in Goa to smoke through your supplies, and if you take too much the guards might notice.’

  I nodded. The same thought had crossed my mind, though with a different slant. I’d been hoping that my regular expeditions would get the guards on their toes. They were so pathetically easy to avoid that it made you wonder why they were there in the first place.

  ‘So what about Christo?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Any developments with him?’

  Jed rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes. He’s getting worse.’

  ‘Delirious?’

  ‘No, just in pain. If he’s awake. He spends most of the time unconscious and he’s running a bad fever. Without a thermometer it’s hard to be sure, but it’s higher than yesterday… To tell you the truth…’ Jed lowered his voice, ‘… I’m getting seriously worried about him.’

  I frowned. Christo looked OK to me. When I’d seen him in the daylight, the morning after rescuing him, I’d felt slightly let down by the undramatic nature of his injuries. Apart from a single cut on his arm – the cut I’d mistaken for a mouth – his only wound was a large bruise on his stomach from where the shark had rammed him. The injuries were so superficial that he’d walked around on the first day, trying to find Karl. He’d only collapsed on the second day, which we’d thought was a result of stress or possibly a relapse of the food poisoning.

  ‘I mean,’ Jed continued, ‘the bruise should be going down, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘You’re the doctor, Jed.’

  ‘I’m not a fucking doctor. That’s the point.’

  I leant over
to take a look. ‘Well, it’s blacker than it was. Not so purple. I think that means it’s healing.’

  ‘Do you know that for a fact?’

  ‘Not for a fact, no.’ I paused. ‘I’m sure it’ll be just the food poisoning that’s keeping him low. Jesse is still getting gripes.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And so is Bugs… unfortunately!’ I added with a mischievous wink that Jed either missed or ignored. ‘… Well, I’m going to get some food and catch up with Françoise and the others.’

  ‘OK. Leave a cigarette will you? And come back later. Nobody comes in to check on me apart from you and Unhygienix. I think they’re avoiding having to see Christo… Pretending it hasn’t happened maybe.’

  ‘Pretty hard,’ I said, chucking him the packet. ‘Sten’s still lying in that sleeping-bag around the back of the longhouse. It’s right on the other side from where I sleep, and I can smell him through the walls.’

  Jed glanced at me. There was obviously something he wanted to say so I nodded, to say, ‘Go on,’ but he only sighed. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said sadly. ‘Sal said she’s given up on trying to persuade Karl to be there, so he’ll be buried by the waterfall tomorrow morning.’

  Dissent

  Sal had been sitting in her usual spot outside the longhouse entrance, which, if you wanted to get to the beach, was unavoidable without an exhaustingly roundabout route via the Khyber Pass. But to my relief she’d moved by the time I left the hospital tent. I assumed she’d gone to the centre of the clearing to talk to Bugs; something I could have confirmed with a simple turn of the head, but I didn’t want to look in the enemy’s direction so I took it on faith. My mistake. I should have confirmed. Just like with Cassie, I was sprung as I thought I was leaving the danger zone – in this case past the longhouse, about to join the path from the clearing to the beach.

  ‘Richard,’ said a stern voice.

  Sal was standing chest-deep in the shrubs beside the track. She’d clearly been hiding there in order to trap me. ‘You were hiding,’ I blurted, surprised into speaking the truth.

  ‘Yes, Richard, I was.’ She stepped forwards, delicately parting the ferns with a pudgy hand. ‘I didn’t want to force you into one of your ludicrously transparent evasion exercises.’

  ‘Evasion? I haven’t been evad…’

  ‘You have.’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘Save it, Richard.’

  This was the third time she’d used my name so I knew she meant business. I gave up the pretence with a feeble grin.

  ‘Wipe that smirk off your face,’ she said immediately. ‘Have you got any idea what trouble you’ve been causing me?’

  ‘Sorry, Sal.’

  ‘Sorry doesn’t cut it. You’re a pain in the ass. How simple were your instructions?’

  ‘Very simple, Sal.’

  ‘Very simple. But you’ve forgotten them already.’

  ‘No, I…’

  ‘Repeat them.’

  ‘… The instructions?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I had to make an effort to keep a schoolboy’s insolence out of my voice. ‘While Jed is looking after Christo, it’s my responsibility to keep you up to date on…’ I stammered and a cold flush pricked my neck. I’d nearly said Zeph and Sammy’s names.

  ‘On?’ Sal demanded.

  ‘… On our potential new arrivals.’

  ‘Exactly. Now perhaps you can tell me why you’re finding that one little task so difficult.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell today. No developments, same as always…’

  ‘Wrong.’ Sal shook a finger at me. I watched the little hammocks of fat under her upper arm wobble indignantly. ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong. If there’s nothing to tell, I want to hear it. Otherwise I worry, and I’ve got a lot to worry about at the moment, so I don’t need you making things worse. Get it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ She lowered her finger and took a breath to compose herself. ‘I don’t mean to be tough on you, but I just can’t deal with extra hassles at the moment. Morale is… well, morale is bad.’

  ‘We’ll pull through.’

  ‘I know we will, Richard,’ she said curtly. ‘I have no doubt of it. But to make certain, I want you to pass on a message to all your friends.’

  ‘…Sure.’

  ‘Yes. I want you to tell them that for the past three days, for obvious reasons, I’ve been tolerating this absurd rift that has blown up in the camp.’

  I made a rather foolish attempt at appearing innocent. ‘Rift?’

  ‘Rift! As in half the camp not talking to the other half! As in people threatening to stick spears in other people’s necks!’

  I reddened.

  ‘Now you may or may not know that tomorrow morning we’re going to be burying Sten. I want that burial to mark the end of the tension so that some good can come out of this appalling tragedy. I also want you to know that I’m giving the same message to Bugs. I don’t want you lot thinking he’s getting preferential treatment because he’s my man. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Sal nodded. Then she put the base of her palm flat on her forehead, and held it there silently for several seconds.

  Poor Sal, I thought. I hadn’t been very understanding of the stress she was under, and I made a resolution to be a good deal more understanding in the future. I wasn’t even sure why I’d been avoiding her. My problem was with Bugs. I’d unfairly allowed my dislike of him to spill over to her.

  ‘So,’ she said eventually. ‘Where were you going before I nabbed you?’

  ‘To the beach. Looking for Françoise… and checking up on Karl.’

  ‘Karl…’ Sal muttered something indistinct and looked up at the canopy. When she looked down she seemed surprised to find me still with her. ‘Go on then,’ she said, ushering me away. ‘What are you waiting for? Get lost.’

  It was getting close to six o’clock when I reached the beach, cool enough to walk slowly on the dry sand if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t. I was playing one of my games, and it required walking in the damp sand by the shore.

  The aim was to leave the perfect footprint, and it was a lot harder and more preoccupying than it might sound. If the sand was the dry side of damp, the footprint crumbled; the moist side and it melted as the squeezed-out water seeped back in. Then there was the application of pressure. The toes sank too deeply with a normal step and flawed the imprint. The alternative, taking an artificial step with even pressure, created a good imprint at the cost of ethics. This was the compromise I wrestled with.

  In this way I made my way along the beach, hopping, pausing, groaning, mashing up bad prints in frustration. My eyes were always pointed downwards, so I didn’t realize I’d reached my friends until I was within a couple of metres of them.

  ‘Are you going insane, Rich?’ I heard Keaty say. ‘If you are, tell us. It might mean you have better luck getting through to Karl.’

  ‘I’m trying to make the perfect footprint,’ I replied without raising my head. ‘It’s really difficult.’

  Keaty laughed in a way that told me he was stoned. ‘The perfect footprint, huh? Yeah, that’s getting pretty close to insane. And more original than trying to draw the perfect circle.’

  ‘Circle?’

  ‘It’s what mad people do.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stamped out my last effort and trudged over, disappointed to see that Françoise wasn’t with them. ‘Is that what Karl is doing?’

  ‘Nope. He’s too mad even for circles.’

  ‘Actually,’ Étienne interrupted, not about to join in with Keaty’s flippant appraisal, ‘Karl is not mad. He is en état de choc.’

  Keaty arched his eyebrows. ‘Uh-huh. Just what I figured… Now maybe you could tell us what it means.’

  ‘I do not know the correct English. It is why I said it in French.’

  ‘That’s helpful.’

  ‘If you had intended to help, you would be taking Karl to Ko Pha-Ngan,’ said Étienne stiffly, and stood
up. ‘And I am tired of arguing this with you. Excuse me, Richard. I am going back to camp. You will tell Françoise when she returns?’

  ‘OK,’ I replied uncomfortably. I’d obviously turned up in the middle of something, and I wasn’t at all happy with the idea that my friends had been arguing. We had to stick together, even if Sal was going to be calling for a truce tomorrow.

  Étienne began walking away. A couple of seconds later, Keaty turned to Gregorio and hissed, ‘Why the fuck weren’t you backing me up?’

  Gregorio looked at his hands pensively. ‘I do not know… I thought perhaps he was right.’

  ‘He isn’t right. How can he be right?’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said, first checking behind me to make sure that Étienne was out of earshot. ‘Was Étienne being serious about Ko Pha-Ngan?’

  Keaty nodded. His tiny dreadlocks were still short enough to stand bolt upright, and they seemed to accentuate his expression of incredulity. ‘Dead serious. He’s been saying it all day. Says he’s going to bring it up with Sal.’

  ‘But he must know we can’t take him to Ko Pha-Ngan. What would we say? “Here’s a friend of ours who’s been attacked by a shark and had a nervous breakdown on our secret beach. Well, we’ll be off then. See you…” ’

  ‘He thinks we could take him there and drop him off near Hat Rin.’

  ‘That’s nuts. Even if he didn’t give everything away, how would we know he got looked after? There’s a million fucked-up freaks over there. If someone saw him wasting away on the sand, they’d just ignore him.’ I shook my head. ‘No way. The best thing for Karl is for him to be here.’

  ‘I’ve been telling that to Étienne all day. But wait, it gets worse. He wants to drop Sten off on Ko Pha-Ngan as well.’

  ‘Sten?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But he’s dead! What would be the point of…’

  ‘His family. Étienne thinks we have to let them know what’s happened to their son. See, if we left them both on the beach then Karl would definitely be noticed and Sten’s family would be contacted.’