The Beach

'Will you try?'

'…OK.'

She tucked the sheets over my shoulders, smiling slightly. 'There now. Close your eyes.'

I closed them.

The pillow shifted as she leant over. She kissed me gently on the cheek.

'I am dreaming,' I murmured, as her footsteps padded away down the longhouse. 'I knew it.'

Mister Duck hung above me like a wingless bat, his legs gripping the beam, the curve under his ribcage stretched into a grotesque cavity, his swinging arms dripping steadily.

'I knew it,' I said. 'I knew you were near.' A pulse of blood splashed on to my chest. 'Cold like a fucking reptile's.'

Mister Duck scowled. 'It's as hot as yours. It's only cold because of the fever. And you should put the covers back. You'll catch your death.'

'Too hot.'

'Mmm. Too hot, too cold…'

I wiped my mouth with a wet hand. 'Is it malaria?'

'Malaria? Nervous exhaustion, more like.'

'So how come Francoise doesn't have it?'

'She wasn't as nervous as you.' His outsized jaw jutted out and split his face into a mischievous grin. 'She's been very attentive, you know. Very attentive indeed. Checked on you twice when you were asleep.'

'I am asleep.'

'Sure… Fast asleep.'

The candle-flame faltered as melting wax began to flood the wick. Cicadas chirped outside. Blood like icy water dripped, made me shiver and twist the sheets.

'What was the deal with the lizard, Duck?'

'Lizard?'

'It ran away. In the rainstorm I could hold it in my hand. But here it ran away.'

'I seem to remember it running in the rainstorm, Rich.'

'I held it in my hand.'

'Is that what you remember, Rich?'

The pool of wax grew too large for the candle to contain. Suddenly it drained away and the wick flared brightly, throwing a crisp shadow on the longhouse ceiling. A silhouette. A wingless bat with hanging claws and pencil arms.

'Lightning,' I whispered.

The jaw jutted out. 'That's the boy…'

'Fuck…'

'…That's the kid.'

'…you.'

Minutes passed.

Talk

Late morning, I reckoned. Only from the heat. In the darkness of the longhouse and the steady glow of the candle, there was nothing else to reveal the time.

A Buddha sat cross-legged at the foot of my bed, palms resting flat on ochre knees. An unusual Buddha, female, with a US accent, heavy breasts clearly outlined through a saffron T-shirt, and long hair tied back from her perfectly round face. Around her neck was a necklace of sea shells. Beside her incense sticks burned, sending tiny spirals of perfumed smoke up to the ceiling.

'Finish it, Richard,' said the Buddha, looking pointedly at the bowl I held in my hands – half a freshly cut coconut, now nearly drained of a sugary fish soup. 'Finish all of it.'

I lifted the bowl to my mouth, and the smell of the incense mixed with the fish and the sweetness.

I put it down again. 'I can't, Sal.'

'You must, Richard.'

'I'll throw up.'

'Richard, you must.'

She had the American habit of frequently using one's name. It had the strange effect of being both disarmingly familiar and unnaturally forced.

'Honestly. I can't.'

'It's good for you.'

'I've finished most of it. Look.'

I held up the bowl for her to see and we stared at each other across the blood-stained sheets.

'OK,' she sighed. 'I guess that'll have to do.' Then she folded her arms and narrowed her eyes and said, 'Richard, we need to talk.'

We were alone. Occasionally people would enter and leave but I'd never see them. I'd hear the door at the far end of the longhouse bang open and a small rectangle of light would hover in the darkness until the door swung shut.

When I reached the part about finding Mister Duck's body, Sal looked sad. It wasn't a strong reaction; her eyebrows flicked downwards and her lower lip tensed. I guessed she'd already heard about Duck's death from Etienne and Francoise, so the news wasn't as shocking as it could have been. Her reaction was pretty hard to read. It seemed more directed at me than at anything else, like she was sorry that I'd had to witness something so horrible.

Aside from that one moment, Sal made no other signs. She didn't interrupt me, frown, smile, nod. She just sat in her lotus position, motionless, and listened. At first her blankness was disconcerting and I paused after key events to give her time to comment, but she'd only wait for me to continue. Soon I found myself slipping into a stream of consciousness, talking to her as if she were a tape recorder or a priest.

Very like a priest. I began to feel as if I was in confession, guiltily describing my panic on the plateau and trying to justify why I'd lied to the Thai police; and the silent way she absorbed these things was like absolution. I even made an obscure reference to my attraction to Francoise, just to get it off my chest. Probably too obtuse for her to pick up, but the intention was there.

The only thing I held back was that I'd given two other people directions to the island. I knew I should tell her about Zeph and Sammy, but I also thought she might be pissed off if she knew I'd spread their secret. Better to wait until I knew more about the set up and not risk rocking the boat so early on.

I also didn't tell her about my dreams with Mister Duck, but that was different. There wasn't any reason why I should.

I punctuated the end of the story, leading right up to the point where I'd walked into the camp and collapsed, by leaning out of bed and pulling the two-hundred pack of cigarettes out of my bin-liner. Sal smiled, and the confessional atmosphere was broken, abruptly flipped back to the semi-familiarity of before.

'Hey,' she said, stretching out the word in her North-American drawl. 'You sure came prepared.'

'Mmm,' I replied, all I could say as I sucked the candle-flame on to the tip. 'I'm the addict's addict.'

She laughed. 'I see that.'

'You want one?'

'No thanks. I'd really better not.'

'Giving up?'

'Given up. You should try too, Richard. It's easy to give up here.'

I took a few quick drags without inhaling, to burn the waxy taste out of the cigarette. 'I'll give up when I'm thirty or something. When I have kids.'

Sal shrugged. 'Whatever,' she said, smiling, then brushed a finger over each eyebrow, smoothing out the sweat. 'Well, Richard, it sounds like you had quite an adventure getting here. In normal circumstances, new guests are brought here under supervision. Your circumstances were very unusual.'

I waited for her to elaborate but she didn't. Instead she uncrossed her legs as if she was about to leave.

'Uh, now can I ask you some questions, Sal?' I said quickly.

Her eyes flicked down to her wrist. She wasn't wearing any watch; it was a motion of pure instinct.

'I have some things to do, Richard.'

'Please, Sal. There's so much I've got to ask you.'

'Sure there is, but you'll learn everything in time. There's no particular hurry.'

'Just a few questions.'

She crossed her legs again. 'Five minutes.'

'OK, uh, well first I'd just like to know something about the setup. I mean, what is this place?'

'It's a beach resort.'

I frowned. 'A beach resort?'

'A place to come for vacations.'

I frowned harder. By the look in Sal's eyes I could see she found my expression amusing.

'Holidays?' I tried to say, but the word caught in my throat. It seemed so belittling. I had ambiguous feelings about the differences between tourists and travellers – the problem being that the more I travelled, the smaller the differences became. But the one difference I could still latch on to was that tourists went on holidays while travellers did something else. They travelled.

'What did you think this place was?' Sal asked.