‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard about that. Fill us in.’
‘OK,’ said Zeph. ‘I’ll paint you a picture.’ He lay back on the sand. ‘Close your eyes and think about a lagoon.’
♦
Think about a lagoon, hidden from the sea and passing boats by a high, curving wall of rock. Then imagine white sands and coral gardens never damaged by dynamite fishing or trawling nets. Freshwater falls scatter the island, surrounded by jungle – not the forests of inland Thailand, but jungle. Canopies three levels deep, plants untouched for a thousand years, strangely coloured birds and monkeys in the trees.
On the white sands, fishing in the coral gardens, a select community of travellers pass the months. They leave if they want to, they return, the beach never changes.
‘Select?’ I asked quietly, as if talking through a dream. Zeph’s vision had entirely consumed me.
‘Select,’ he replied. ‘Word of mouth passes on the location to a lucky few.’
‘It’s paradise,’ Sammy murmured. ‘It’s Eden.’
‘Eden,’ Zeph agreed, ‘is how it sounds.’
♦
Françoise was completely thrown by hearing that Sammy and Zeph also knew about the beach. She couldn’t have acted more suspicious if she’d tried.
She stood up suddenly. ‘Now then,’ she said, dusting sand off her legs. ‘We leave early tomorrow morning for, ah, for Ko Pha-Ngan. So I think we shall go to bed now. Étienne? Richard? Come.’
‘Huh?’ I said, disorientated as the image of the beach splintered. ‘Françoise, it’s seven thirty in the evening.’
‘We leave early in the morning,’ she repeated.
‘But…I haven’t eaten any dinner. I’m starving.’
‘Good. So we shall eat now. Good night, Sammy and Zeph,’ she said, before I could ask them to join us. ‘It was very nice meeting you. And really, your beach, what a silly story.’ She laughed gaily.
Étienne sat upright, looking at her as if she’d lost her mind, but she ignored his appalled expression and began marching towards the restaurant.
‘Look,’ I said to Sammy and Zeph. ‘I think she’s…If you want to eat with us…’
‘Yes.’ said Étienne. ‘You are very welcome. Please.’
‘It’s cool,’ Sammy replied, smiling slightly. ‘We’ll hang out here a bit longer. But listen, have a good time in Ko Pha-Ngan. Are you coming back this way?’
I nodded.
‘OK, so we’ll catch up later on. We’re here for a while. A week at least.’
We all shook hands, then Étienne and I followed after Françoise.
♦
Dinner was laden with heavy silences, sometimes broken by a terse exchange in French. But Françoise knew she’d acted foolishly, and was apologetic as we said good night.
‘I do not know,’ she explained. ‘I was suddenly frightened they would want to come with us. Zeph made it sound so…I only want it to be us…’ She frowned, frustrated by her inability to express herself. ‘Do you think they have realized we know about the beach?’
I shrugged. ‘Hard to say. Everyone was pretty stoned.’
Étienne nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Everyone was stoned. We should not worry.’
It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. It wasn’t just because I was anxious about what might happen tomorrow, although that was part of it. I was also troubled by the hurried way I’d said goodbye to Zeph and Sammy. I’d enjoyed their company and knew it was unlikely I’d find them again, if I did come back to Ko Samui. Our parting had been too quick and awkward, too confused by dope and secrets. I felt there was something I’d left unsaid.
∨ The Beach ∧
14
A Safe Bet
I wouldn’t call it a dream. Nothing with Mister Duck was like a dream. In this case, it was ‘more like a movie. Or news footage, swaying on a hand-held camera.
Mister Duck was sprinting towards me across the embassy lawn, his wrists still freshly slit, blood looping out from the cuts as he pumped his arms. I was reeling from the noise of the screaming crowds and helicopters, watching a snowfall of shredded files. Classified snow, swirling in the backdraft from the rotor blades, settling on the manicured grass.
‘Born twenty years too late?’ shouted Mister Duck, belting past me and flipping into a cartwheel. ‘Fuck that!’ His blood echoed the movement, briefly hanging in the air like the trace from a firework.
‘See up there!’
I looked where he pointed. A hovering insect shape was lifting off the roof, with people clinging to the landing skids. It dipped as it pulled away, struggling with the heavy load, and clipped a tree outside the embassy walls.
I shouted with excitement.
‘That’s the boy!’ Mister Duck yelled, ruffling my hair with a wet hand, soaking the collar of my shirt. ‘That’s the kid!’
‘Do we get to escape from the embassy roof?’ I yelled back. ‘I always wanted to do that!’
‘Escape from the embassy roof?’
‘Do we get to?’
‘You bet,’ he laughed. ‘You fucking bet.’
∨ The Beach ∧
15
Leaving
I drew quickly, sweating despite the early morning chill. There wasn’t time to take the same kind of care over the map as Mister Duck had. The islands were rough circles, the curving shore line of Thailand a series of jagged lines, and there were only three labels. Ko Samui, Ko Phelong, and Eden.
At the bottom of the page I wrote ‘Wait on Chaweng for three days. If we haven’t come back by then it means we made it to the beach. See you there? Richard.’
I crept outside. A light already shone in Françoise and Étienne’s hut. Shivering, I stole along the porch and slipped the map under Zeph and Sammy’s door. Then I collected my bag, locked up my room, and went to the restaurant to wait for the others.
The Thai boy who’d been kicking the coconut husk was sweeping the floor. As I arrived he glanced outside, to check it was as early as he thought it was.
‘You wan’ banan’ pancake?’ he asked cautiously.
I shook my head. ‘No thanks. But I would like to buy four hundred cigarettes.’
∨ The Beach ∧
Getting There
∨ The Beach ∧
16
Littering
The spiv’s motor boat was painted white down to the watermark strip, and below that it was yellow – or yellow when it lifted clear of the sea, pale green when it sank back down. At one time his boat must have been red. The white was blistered or scraped away in places, leaving crimson streaks that looked like cuts. With the rolling movement and growling engine, the cuts were enough to make me feel the boat was alive. It knew which way I expected it to lurch and routinely surprised me.
Beside us, where the water was disturbed, the morning sun played tricks in the sea. Gold shapes like a shoal of fish spun beneath the surface, matching our speed. I reached down and trailed my hand, catching a fish on my palm. It swam there, flickering over my lifeline, then I balled my fist. The fish slipped out and swam on my closed fingers.
‘You should not look down,’ said Françoise, leaning over from the other side of the boat. ‘If you look down, you will feel sick. Watch the island. The island does not move.’
I looked where she pointed. Strangely, Ko Samui seemed miles behind us, but the drop-off island still appeared as distant as it had an hour ago.