I lay on my back with my hands behind my head, content in the knowledge that the muffled sound of the wheels on the tracks and the rocking movement of the carriage would soon send me to sleep.
Most people find it easy to sleep on trains, but for me it's particularly easy. In fact, I find it almost impossible to stay awake. I grew up in a house that backed on to a train line and night-time was when you'd notice the trains most. My version of the Sandman is the 12:10 from Euston.
While I waited for the Pavlovian response to kick in, I studied the clever design of my bunk. The carriage lights had been dimmed, but enough came through the gap around my curtain for me to see. There was a whole array of useful pouches and compartments which I'd done my best to employ. My T-shirt and trousers were tucked into a little box at my foot end, and I'd put my shoes in an elastic net above my waist. Above my head was an adjustable reading lamp, switched off, but beside it a tiny red bulb gave a reassuring glow.
As I became sleepy I started to fantasize. I imagined the train was a space ship and I was en route to some distant planet.
I don't know if I'm alone in doing this kind of thing. It isn't something I've ever talked about. The fact is, I've never grown out of playing pretend, and so far there are no signs that I ever will. I have one quite carefully worked-out night-time fantasy that I'm in a kind of high-tech race. The race takes place over several days, even a week, and is non-stop. While I sleep my vehicle continues on autopilot, speeding me towards the finish line. The auto-pilot thing is the rationalization of how I can be in bed while I'm having the fantasy. Making it work in such a logical way is important – it would be no good fantasizing that the race was in a Formula One car, because how could I go to sleep in that? Get real.
Sometimes I'm winning the race, other times I'm losing. But on those occasions I also fantasize that I have a little trick up my sleeve. A short cut perhaps, or just a reliance on my ability to take corners quicker than the other competitors. Either way, I fall asleep quietly confident.
I think the catalyst for this particular fantasy was the little red bulb beside the reading lamp. As everyone knows, space ships aren't space ships without little red bulbs. Everything else – the clever compartments, the rushing noise of the train's engine/warp drive, the sense of adventure – was a happy complement.
By the time I fell asleep, my scanners were detecting life-forms on the surface of a distant planet. Could have been Jupiter. It had the same kind of cloud patterns, like a tie-dye T-shirt.
The warm security of my space-ship capsule slipped away. I was back on my bed on the Khao San Road, looking up at the ceiling fan. A mosquito was buzzing in the room. I couldn't see it but its wings pulsed like a helicopter's when it flew near. Sitting beside me was Mister Duck, the sheets around him red and wet.
'Would you sort this out for me, Rich?' Mister Duck said, passing me a half-rolled joint. 'I can't do it. My hands are too sticky. The Rizla… The Rizla keeps falling apart.'
He laughed apologetically as I took the joint.
'It's my wrists. Slit them all over and now they won't stop bleeding.' He lifted up his arm and a squirt of blood arced across the Formica wall. 'See what I mean? What a fucking mess.'
I rolled the joint but didn't lick it. On the strip of gum was a red fingerprint.
'Oh. You don't want to worry about that, Rich. I'm clean.' Mister Duck looked down at his sodden clothes. 'Well, not clean…'
I licked the Rizla.
'So spark it up. I'll only make it wet.'
He held out a light and I sat up on the bed. My weight sunk the mattress and a stream of blood ran down the slope, soaking into my shorts.
'Now how's that? Hits the fucking spot, huh? But you want to try it through a rifle barrel. That's a serious hit, Rich.'
'Blow my mind.'
'Yeah,' said Mister Duck. 'That's the boy. That's the kid…'
He lay back on the bed with his hands above his head, wrists facing upwards. I took another drag. Blood ran along the blades of the fan and fell around me like rain.
KO SAMUI
R&R
Suckered
Spaced Invaders
TV Heaven
Eden
A Safe Bet
Leaving
Most people find it easy to sleep on trains, but for me it's particularly easy. In fact, I find it almost impossible to stay awake. I grew up in a house that backed on to a train line and night-time was when you'd notice the trains most. My version of the Sandman is the 12:10 from Euston.
While I waited for the Pavlovian response to kick in, I studied the clever design of my bunk. The carriage lights had been dimmed, but enough came through the gap around my curtain for me to see. There was a whole array of useful pouches and compartments which I'd done my best to employ. My T-shirt and trousers were tucked into a little box at my foot end, and I'd put my shoes in an elastic net above my waist. Above my head was an adjustable reading lamp, switched off, but beside it a tiny red bulb gave a reassuring glow.
As I became sleepy I started to fantasize. I imagined the train was a space ship and I was en route to some distant planet.
I don't know if I'm alone in doing this kind of thing. It isn't something I've ever talked about. The fact is, I've never grown out of playing pretend, and so far there are no signs that I ever will. I have one quite carefully worked-out night-time fantasy that I'm in a kind of high-tech race. The race takes place over several days, even a week, and is non-stop. While I sleep my vehicle continues on autopilot, speeding me towards the finish line. The auto-pilot thing is the rationalization of how I can be in bed while I'm having the fantasy. Making it work in such a logical way is important – it would be no good fantasizing that the race was in a Formula One car, because how could I go to sleep in that? Get real.
Sometimes I'm winning the race, other times I'm losing. But on those occasions I also fantasize that I have a little trick up my sleeve. A short cut perhaps, or just a reliance on my ability to take corners quicker than the other competitors. Either way, I fall asleep quietly confident.
I think the catalyst for this particular fantasy was the little red bulb beside the reading lamp. As everyone knows, space ships aren't space ships without little red bulbs. Everything else – the clever compartments, the rushing noise of the train's engine/warp drive, the sense of adventure – was a happy complement.
By the time I fell asleep, my scanners were detecting life-forms on the surface of a distant planet. Could have been Jupiter. It had the same kind of cloud patterns, like a tie-dye T-shirt.
The warm security of my space-ship capsule slipped away. I was back on my bed on the Khao San Road, looking up at the ceiling fan. A mosquito was buzzing in the room. I couldn't see it but its wings pulsed like a helicopter's when it flew near. Sitting beside me was Mister Duck, the sheets around him red and wet.
'Would you sort this out for me, Rich?' Mister Duck said, passing me a half-rolled joint. 'I can't do it. My hands are too sticky. The Rizla… The Rizla keeps falling apart.'
He laughed apologetically as I took the joint.
'It's my wrists. Slit them all over and now they won't stop bleeding.' He lifted up his arm and a squirt of blood arced across the Formica wall. 'See what I mean? What a fucking mess.'
I rolled the joint but didn't lick it. On the strip of gum was a red fingerprint.
'Oh. You don't want to worry about that, Rich. I'm clean.' Mister Duck looked down at his sodden clothes. 'Well, not clean…'
I licked the Rizla.
'So spark it up. I'll only make it wet.'
He held out a light and I sat up on the bed. My weight sunk the mattress and a stream of blood ran down the slope, soaking into my shorts.
'Now how's that? Hits the fucking spot, huh? But you want to try it through a rifle barrel. That's a serious hit, Rich.'
'Blow my mind.'
'Yeah,' said Mister Duck. 'That's the boy. That's the kid…'
He lay back on the bed with his hands above his head, wrists facing upwards. I took another drag. Blood ran along the blades of the fan and fell around me like rain.
KO SAMUI
R&R
The journey from the train station at Surat Thani to Ko Samui passed in a sleep-fogged blur. I vaguely remember following Étienne and Françoise on to the bus to Don Sak, and my only memory of the ferry ride was of Étienne shouting in my ear over the noise of the boat's engines. 'There, Richard!' he yelled, pointing towards the horizon. 'That's the marine park!' A cluster of blue-green shapes was just visible in the distance. I nodded obligingly. I was more interested in finding a soft spot on my backpack to use as a pillow.
Our jeep from the Ko Samui port to the Chaweng beach resort was a big open-top Isuzu. On the left the sea lay blue between rows of coconut palms, and on the right a jungle-covered slope rose steeply. Ten travellers sat behind the driver's cabin, our bags clamped between our knees, our heads rolling with the corners. One had a baseball bat resting against his shoulder, another held a camera on his lap. Brown faces flashed past us through the green. 'Delta One-Niner,' I muttered. 'This is Alpha patrol.' The jeep left us outside a decent-looking bunch of beach huts, but backpacker protocol demanded we check out the competition. After half an hour of slogging across the hot sand, we returned to the huts we'd first seen.
Private showers, a bedside fan, a nice restaurant that looked on to the sea. Our huts faced each other over a gravel path lined with flowers. It was très beau, Françoise said with a happy sigh, and I agreed.
The first thing I did after shutting the door behind me was to go to the bathroom mirror and examine my face. I hadn't seen my reflection for a couple of days and wanted to check things were OK.
It was a bit of a shock. Being around lots of tanned skin I'd somehow assumed I was also tanned, but the ghost in the mirror corrected me. My whiteness was accentuated by my stubble, which, like my hair, is jet black. UV deprivation aside, I was in bad need of a shower. My T-shirt had the salty stiffness of material that has been sweated in, sun-dried, then sweated in again. I decided to head straight to the beach for a swim. I could kill two birds with one stone – soak up a few rays and get clean.
Chaweng was a travel-brochure photo. Hammocks slung in the shade of curving palm trees, sand too bright to look at, jet-skis tracing white patterns like jet-planes in a clear sky. I ran down to the surf, partly because the sand was so hot and partly because I always run into the sea. When the water began to drag on my legs I jumped up, and the momentum somersaulted me forwards. I landed on my back and sank to the bottom, exhaling. On the seabed I let myself rest, head tilted slightly forward to keep the air trapped in my nose, and listened to the soft clicks and rushes of underwater noise.
I'd been splashing around in the water for fifteen minutes or so when Étienne came down to join me. He also ran across the sand and somersaulted into the sea, but then leapt up with a yelp.
'What's up?' I called.
Étienne shook his head, pushing backwards through the water away from where he'd landed. 'This! This animal! This… fish!'
I began wading towards him. 'What fish?'
'I do not know the English – Aaah! Aaah! There are more! Aaah! Stinging!'
'Oh,' I said as I reached him. 'Jellyfish! Great!'
I was pleased to see the pale shapes, floating in the water like drops of silvery oil. I loved their straightforward weirdness, the strange area they occupied between plant and animal life.
I learnt an interesting thing about jellyfish from a Filipino guy. He was one of the only people my age on an island where I'd once stayed, so we became pals. We spent many happy weeks together playing Frisbee on the beach, then diving into the South China Sea. He taught me that if you pick up jellyfish with the palm of your hand, you don't get hurt – although then you had to be careful to scrub your hands, because if you rubbed your eyes or scratched your back the poison would lift off and sting like mad. We used to have jellyfish fights, hurling the tennis-ball-sized globs at each other. On a calm day you could skim them over the sea like flat pebbles, although if you chucked them too hard they tended to explode. He also told me that you can eat them raw, like sushi. He was right. Literally speaking, you can, as long as you don't mind a few days of stomach cramps and vomiting.
I looked at the jellyfish around us. They looked the same as the ones in the Philippines so I decided it was worth the risk of a sting, thinking how worldly and impressive it would seem to Étienne. The gamble paid off. His eyes opened wide as I plucked one of the quivering blobs from the sea.
'Mon Dieu!' he exclaimed.
I smiled. I didn't realize French people actually said 'Mon Dieu'. I always thought it was the same thing as English people supposedly saying 'what' at the end of every sentence.
'It is not hurting, Richard?'
'Nope. It's about how you hold it, like stinging nettles. You try.'
I held out the jellyfish.
'No, I do not want to.'
'It's fine. Go on.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, sure. Hold your hands like mine.'
I slid the jellyfish into his cupped hands.
'Oooh,' he said, a big grin spreading over his face.
'But you can only touch it with your palms. If you touch it anywhere else it'll sting.'
'Only the palm? Why is that?'
I shrugged. 'Don't know. That's the rule.'
'I think maybe the skin is more thick there.'
'Maybe.' I picked another one out of the water. 'They're weird, aren't they? Look, you can see right through them. They don't have any brains.'
Étienne nodded enthusiastically.
We peered at our jellyfish in silence for a few moments, then I noticed Françoise. She was on the beach, walking towards the water in a one-piece white swimsuit. She saw us and waved. As her arm lifted her swimsuit drew tightly over her chest and shadows from the one o'clock sun defined her breasts, the dip under the ribcage, a groove of muscle down her stomach.
I glanced at Étienne. He was still examining his jellyfish, pulling its tentacles outwards from the bell so it sat on his palm like a glass flower. Perhaps familiarity had blunted him to Françoise's beauty.
When she reached us she was unimpressed by our catch. 'I do not like them,' she said curtly. 'Will you come for a swim?'
I pointed at the chest-deep water, shoulder-deep for Françoise. 'We are swimming, aren't we?'
'No,' said Étienne, finally looking up. 'She means a swim.' He gestured to the open sea. 'Out there.'
We played a game as we swam out. Every thirty feet we would each dive to the bottom and return with a handful of sand.
I found the game strangely unpleasant. A metre underwater the warmth of the tropical sea would stop, and it would turn cold, so abruptly that by treading water one could pinpoint the dividing line. Diving down, the chill would start at the fingertips then swiftly envelop the length of the body.
The further we swam, the blacker and finer the sand became. Soon the water at the bottom became too dark for me to see anything, and I could only blindly kick out with my legs, arms outstretched, until my hands sank into the silt.
I began dreading the cold area. I would hurry to catch my fistful, pushing up hard from the seabed though my lungs were still full of air. In the times I waited at the surface, while Étienne or Françoise swam down, I would keep my legs bunched up beneath me, using my arms to stay afloat.
'How far out do we go?' I said when the sunbathers on the beach behind us had turned into ants.
Étienne smiled. 'You would like to go back now? Are you tired? We can go back.'
Françoise held up her hand clear of the water and unclenched her fingers. A lump of sand rolled out and dropped into the sea, where it sank, leaving a cloudy trail behind.
'You are tired, Richard?' she said, eyebrows arched.
'I'm fine,' I replied. 'Let's swim further.'
Our jeep from the Ko Samui port to the Chaweng beach resort was a big open-top Isuzu. On the left the sea lay blue between rows of coconut palms, and on the right a jungle-covered slope rose steeply. Ten travellers sat behind the driver's cabin, our bags clamped between our knees, our heads rolling with the corners. One had a baseball bat resting against his shoulder, another held a camera on his lap. Brown faces flashed past us through the green. 'Delta One-Niner,' I muttered. 'This is Alpha patrol.' The jeep left us outside a decent-looking bunch of beach huts, but backpacker protocol demanded we check out the competition. After half an hour of slogging across the hot sand, we returned to the huts we'd first seen.
Private showers, a bedside fan, a nice restaurant that looked on to the sea. Our huts faced each other over a gravel path lined with flowers. It was très beau, Françoise said with a happy sigh, and I agreed.
The first thing I did after shutting the door behind me was to go to the bathroom mirror and examine my face. I hadn't seen my reflection for a couple of days and wanted to check things were OK.
It was a bit of a shock. Being around lots of tanned skin I'd somehow assumed I was also tanned, but the ghost in the mirror corrected me. My whiteness was accentuated by my stubble, which, like my hair, is jet black. UV deprivation aside, I was in bad need of a shower. My T-shirt had the salty stiffness of material that has been sweated in, sun-dried, then sweated in again. I decided to head straight to the beach for a swim. I could kill two birds with one stone – soak up a few rays and get clean.
Chaweng was a travel-brochure photo. Hammocks slung in the shade of curving palm trees, sand too bright to look at, jet-skis tracing white patterns like jet-planes in a clear sky. I ran down to the surf, partly because the sand was so hot and partly because I always run into the sea. When the water began to drag on my legs I jumped up, and the momentum somersaulted me forwards. I landed on my back and sank to the bottom, exhaling. On the seabed I let myself rest, head tilted slightly forward to keep the air trapped in my nose, and listened to the soft clicks and rushes of underwater noise.
I'd been splashing around in the water for fifteen minutes or so when Étienne came down to join me. He also ran across the sand and somersaulted into the sea, but then leapt up with a yelp.
'What's up?' I called.
Étienne shook his head, pushing backwards through the water away from where he'd landed. 'This! This animal! This… fish!'
I began wading towards him. 'What fish?'
'I do not know the English – Aaah! Aaah! There are more! Aaah! Stinging!'
'Oh,' I said as I reached him. 'Jellyfish! Great!'
I was pleased to see the pale shapes, floating in the water like drops of silvery oil. I loved their straightforward weirdness, the strange area they occupied between plant and animal life.
I learnt an interesting thing about jellyfish from a Filipino guy. He was one of the only people my age on an island where I'd once stayed, so we became pals. We spent many happy weeks together playing Frisbee on the beach, then diving into the South China Sea. He taught me that if you pick up jellyfish with the palm of your hand, you don't get hurt – although then you had to be careful to scrub your hands, because if you rubbed your eyes or scratched your back the poison would lift off and sting like mad. We used to have jellyfish fights, hurling the tennis-ball-sized globs at each other. On a calm day you could skim them over the sea like flat pebbles, although if you chucked them too hard they tended to explode. He also told me that you can eat them raw, like sushi. He was right. Literally speaking, you can, as long as you don't mind a few days of stomach cramps and vomiting.
I looked at the jellyfish around us. They looked the same as the ones in the Philippines so I decided it was worth the risk of a sting, thinking how worldly and impressive it would seem to Étienne. The gamble paid off. His eyes opened wide as I plucked one of the quivering blobs from the sea.
'Mon Dieu!' he exclaimed.
I smiled. I didn't realize French people actually said 'Mon Dieu'. I always thought it was the same thing as English people supposedly saying 'what' at the end of every sentence.
'It is not hurting, Richard?'
'Nope. It's about how you hold it, like stinging nettles. You try.'
I held out the jellyfish.
'No, I do not want to.'
'It's fine. Go on.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, sure. Hold your hands like mine.'
I slid the jellyfish into his cupped hands.
'Oooh,' he said, a big grin spreading over his face.
'But you can only touch it with your palms. If you touch it anywhere else it'll sting.'
'Only the palm? Why is that?'
I shrugged. 'Don't know. That's the rule.'
'I think maybe the skin is more thick there.'
'Maybe.' I picked another one out of the water. 'They're weird, aren't they? Look, you can see right through them. They don't have any brains.'
Étienne nodded enthusiastically.
We peered at our jellyfish in silence for a few moments, then I noticed Françoise. She was on the beach, walking towards the water in a one-piece white swimsuit. She saw us and waved. As her arm lifted her swimsuit drew tightly over her chest and shadows from the one o'clock sun defined her breasts, the dip under the ribcage, a groove of muscle down her stomach.
I glanced at Étienne. He was still examining his jellyfish, pulling its tentacles outwards from the bell so it sat on his palm like a glass flower. Perhaps familiarity had blunted him to Françoise's beauty.
When she reached us she was unimpressed by our catch. 'I do not like them,' she said curtly. 'Will you come for a swim?'
I pointed at the chest-deep water, shoulder-deep for Françoise. 'We are swimming, aren't we?'
'No,' said Étienne, finally looking up. 'She means a swim.' He gestured to the open sea. 'Out there.'
We played a game as we swam out. Every thirty feet we would each dive to the bottom and return with a handful of sand.
I found the game strangely unpleasant. A metre underwater the warmth of the tropical sea would stop, and it would turn cold, so abruptly that by treading water one could pinpoint the dividing line. Diving down, the chill would start at the fingertips then swiftly envelop the length of the body.
The further we swam, the blacker and finer the sand became. Soon the water at the bottom became too dark for me to see anything, and I could only blindly kick out with my legs, arms outstretched, until my hands sank into the silt.
I began dreading the cold area. I would hurry to catch my fistful, pushing up hard from the seabed though my lungs were still full of air. In the times I waited at the surface, while Étienne or Françoise swam down, I would keep my legs bunched up beneath me, using my arms to stay afloat.
'How far out do we go?' I said when the sunbathers on the beach behind us had turned into ants.
Étienne smiled. 'You would like to go back now? Are you tired? We can go back.'
Françoise held up her hand clear of the water and unclenched her fingers. A lump of sand rolled out and dropped into the sea, where it sank, leaving a cloudy trail behind.
'You are tired, Richard?' she said, eyebrows arched.
'I'm fine,' I replied. 'Let's swim further.'
Suckered
At five that afternoon the temperature cooled, the sky turned black, and it rained. Unexpectedly, loudly – heavy droplets pouring down, cratering and re-cratering the beach. I sat on the small porch outside my hut and watched a miniature Sea of Tranquillity form in the sand. Across the way Étienne appeared briefly, snatching the swimming shorts he'd left out there to dry. He called something to me but it was lost in a roll of thunder, then he ducked back inside.
I had a tiny lizard on my hand. It was about three inches long, with enormous eyes and translucent skin. The lizard had been sitting on my cigarette packet for ten minutes, and when I'd got bored with watching it, waiting for a tongue to lash out and lasso a fly, I'd reached out and picked it up. Instead of wriggling away as I'd expected, the lizard had casually rearranged itself on my hand. Surprised by its audacity, I let it sit there – even though it meant keeping my hand in an unnatural position, palm facing upwards, which made my arm ache.
My attention was distracted by two guys running up the beach, whooping and shouting as they came. As they reached my hut they turned off the beach and leapt athletically on to the next porch along from mine.
'Man!' whooped one of them, white-blond with a goatee beard.
'That's some fuckin' storm!' replied the other, yellow-blond and clean-shaven. 'Whoop!'
'Americans,' I whispered to the lizard.
They rattled at their door, then ran back into the rain towards the beach restaurant – weaving around, trying to dodge the rain. A couple of minutes later they came speeding back. Again they rattled at their door – then white-blond saw me, apparently for the first time. 'Lost our fuckin' key!' he said, and jabbed a thumb towards the restaurant. 'They lost theirs too! Can't get in!'
'Stuck out here!' said yellow-blond. 'In the rain!'
I nodded. 'Bad luck. Where did you lose it?'
White-blond shrugged. 'Miles down the fuckin' beach, man! Miles and miles!' Then he walked up to the wooden guard-rail that separated our two porches and peered over. 'What you got in your hand there?' he asked.
I held up the lizard.
'Wow! Is it, like, dead?'
'Nope.'
'Excellent! Hey, can I come over? You know, meet the neighbours!'
'Sure.'
'You want to smoke a joint?'
'Sure.'
'Excellent!'
The two of them vaulted over the guard-rail and introduced themselves. White-blond was Sammy, yellow-blond was Zeph.
'Zeph's a strange name, right?' said Zeph as he shook my left hand, not wanting to disturb the lizard. 'Can you guess what it's short for?'
'Zephaniah,' I answered confidently.
'Wrong, dude! It isn't short for anything! I was christened Zeph, and everyone thinks it's short for Zephaniah, but it isn't! Cool, huh?'
'Definitely.'
Sammy started rolling up, pulling the dope and papers out of a waterproof plastic bag in his pocket. 'You're English, huh?' he said, as he flattened out a Rizla with his fingers. 'English people always put tobacco in joints. You see, we never do. Are you addicted to smoking?'
'Afraid so,' I replied.
'I'm not. But if I put tobacco in joints I would be. I smoke all day, like that song. How's that song go, Zeph?'
Zeph started singing a lyric that said, 'Don't bogart that joint, my friend,' but Sammy cut him off.
'No, dude. The other one.'
'What, 'I smoke two joints in the morning'? That one?'
'Yeah.'
Zeph cleared his throat. 'Uh, it goes, «I smoke two joints in the morning, and I smoke two joints at night, and I smoke two joints in the afternoon, and then I feel all right»…And then it goes, «I smoke two joints in times of peace, and two in times of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, then I smoke two more.» I can't remember the rest.' He shook his head.
'No matter, dude,' said Sammy. 'You get the idea, Ricardo? I smoke a lot.'
'Sounds like it.'
'Uh-huh.'
Sammy had finished rolling the joint while Zeph had been singing. He lit it up and passed it straight to me. 'That's another thing about English dudes,' he wheezed, smoke coming out of his mouth in short bursts. 'You hang on to the joint for an age. Us Americans take a toke or two and pass it on.'
'It's true,' I replied, sucking in.
I was going to apologize for the poor manners of my countrymen but I collapsed into a coughing fit.
'Rickster!' said Zeph, patting me on the back. 'You gotta cough to get off.'
A couple of seconds later a blistering bolt of lightning crackled over the sea. After it was gone, Sammy said in an awestruck voice, 'Most totally excellent, dude!' Zeph quickly followed it up with, 'Like, utterly outrageous, compadre!'
I opened my mouth, then hesitated. 'Excellent, dude,' I muttered thoughtfully.
'Most excellent,' Sammy repeated.
I groaned.
'A problem, Ricardo?'
'You're winding me up.'
Sammy and Zeph looked at each other, then at me.
'Winding you up?'
'Having me on.'
Sammy frowned. 'Speak in English, my man.'
'This… Keanu Reeves thing. It's a joke, right? You don't really talk like that… do you?'
There was a brief silence, then Zeph swore. 'We're rumbled, Sammy.'
'Yeah,' Sammy replied. 'We overplayed our hand.'
They were Harvard students. Sammy was studying law, Zeph was studying Afro-American literature. Their surf act was a reaction to the condescending Europeans they kept meeting in Asia. 'It's a protest against bigotry,' Zeph explained, pulling knots out of his tangled blond locks. 'Europeans think all Americans are stupid, so we act stupid to confirm your prejudices. Then we reveal ourselves as intelligent, and by doing so, subvert the prejudice more effectively than we would with an immediate barrage of intellect – which only causes confusion and, ultimately, resentment.'
'Really?' I said, genuinely impressed. 'That's so elaborate.'
Zeph laughed. 'No, not really. We just do it for fun.'
They had other acts they liked to do. Zeph's favourite was the Surf Dude, but Sammy had another – he called it the Nigger Lover. As its name implies, it was a bit more risque than the Surf Dude.
'One time I got punched doing the Nigger Lover,' Sammy said, as he began to roll another joint. 'Knocked flat on my fuckin' back.'
I wasn't at all surprised. The act involved Sammy starting violent arguments with total strangers, insisting that because there's a country in Africa called Niger, all people from Niger were niggers –regardless of whether they were black or white.
'Aren't they called Nigerians?' I asked, bristling slightly, despite knowing I was being suckered.
Sammy shook his head. 'That's what everyone says, but I don't think so. Think about it. Nigeria is right below Niger. They border each other, so if they were both called Nigerians it would cause chaos.'
'Well, I still doubt they're called niggers.'
'Oh sure. Me too. I only say it to make a point… Fuck knows what the point is, but…' He drew on the joint and passed it on. 'It's like my grandad taught me. He was a colonel in the US Marines. Sammy, he'd say, the ends always justify the means. And you know what, Richard? He was right.'
I was about to disagree, but I realized he was winding me up again. Instead I replied, 'You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.'
Sammy smiled and turned to look at the sea.
'That's the boy, ' I thought I heard him say.
Lightning silhouetted the line of palm trees on the beach into a line of claws with pencil arms. The lizard scuttled out of my hand, startled by the flash.
'That's the kid.'
I frowned. 'Sorry? What was that?'
He turned back, also frowning, but with the smile still not faded from his lips. 'What was what?'
'Didn't you just say something?'
'Nope.'
I looked at Zeph. 'Didn't you hear him say something?'
Zeph shrugged. 'I was watching the lightning.'
'Oh.'
Just the dope talking, I guessed.
The rain continued as night fell. Étienne and Françoise stayed in their hut, and Zeph, Sammy and I stayed on the porch until we were too stoned to do anything but sit in silence, passing the odd comment between us if there was an impressive roll of thunder.
An hour or two after dark a tiny Thai woman came over to our porch from the restaurant, almost hidden under a giant beach parasol. She looked at the dope paraphernalia strewn about us with a wan smile, then handed Zeph a spare key to their room. I took that as my cue to crawl into bed. As I said good night, Sammy croaked, 'Hey, nice meeting you. Catch you tomorrow, dude.'
He seemed to say it without a trace of irony. I couldn't work out whether it was a continuation of his surfer joke or whether the grass had regressed his Harvard mind. It seemed too complicated to ask, so I said, 'Sure,' and shut the door behind me.
At around three in the morning I woke up for a short while, dry-mouthed, still high – and listened. I could hear cicadas, and waves sucking down the beach. The storm had blown itself out.
I had a tiny lizard on my hand. It was about three inches long, with enormous eyes and translucent skin. The lizard had been sitting on my cigarette packet for ten minutes, and when I'd got bored with watching it, waiting for a tongue to lash out and lasso a fly, I'd reached out and picked it up. Instead of wriggling away as I'd expected, the lizard had casually rearranged itself on my hand. Surprised by its audacity, I let it sit there – even though it meant keeping my hand in an unnatural position, palm facing upwards, which made my arm ache.
My attention was distracted by two guys running up the beach, whooping and shouting as they came. As they reached my hut they turned off the beach and leapt athletically on to the next porch along from mine.
'Man!' whooped one of them, white-blond with a goatee beard.
'That's some fuckin' storm!' replied the other, yellow-blond and clean-shaven. 'Whoop!'
'Americans,' I whispered to the lizard.
They rattled at their door, then ran back into the rain towards the beach restaurant – weaving around, trying to dodge the rain. A couple of minutes later they came speeding back. Again they rattled at their door – then white-blond saw me, apparently for the first time. 'Lost our fuckin' key!' he said, and jabbed a thumb towards the restaurant. 'They lost theirs too! Can't get in!'
'Stuck out here!' said yellow-blond. 'In the rain!'
I nodded. 'Bad luck. Where did you lose it?'
White-blond shrugged. 'Miles down the fuckin' beach, man! Miles and miles!' Then he walked up to the wooden guard-rail that separated our two porches and peered over. 'What you got in your hand there?' he asked.
I held up the lizard.
'Wow! Is it, like, dead?'
'Nope.'
'Excellent! Hey, can I come over? You know, meet the neighbours!'
'Sure.'
'You want to smoke a joint?'
'Sure.'
'Excellent!'
The two of them vaulted over the guard-rail and introduced themselves. White-blond was Sammy, yellow-blond was Zeph.
'Zeph's a strange name, right?' said Zeph as he shook my left hand, not wanting to disturb the lizard. 'Can you guess what it's short for?'
'Zephaniah,' I answered confidently.
'Wrong, dude! It isn't short for anything! I was christened Zeph, and everyone thinks it's short for Zephaniah, but it isn't! Cool, huh?'
'Definitely.'
Sammy started rolling up, pulling the dope and papers out of a waterproof plastic bag in his pocket. 'You're English, huh?' he said, as he flattened out a Rizla with his fingers. 'English people always put tobacco in joints. You see, we never do. Are you addicted to smoking?'
'Afraid so,' I replied.
'I'm not. But if I put tobacco in joints I would be. I smoke all day, like that song. How's that song go, Zeph?'
Zeph started singing a lyric that said, 'Don't bogart that joint, my friend,' but Sammy cut him off.
'No, dude. The other one.'
'What, 'I smoke two joints in the morning'? That one?'
'Yeah.'
Zeph cleared his throat. 'Uh, it goes, «I smoke two joints in the morning, and I smoke two joints at night, and I smoke two joints in the afternoon, and then I feel all right»…And then it goes, «I smoke two joints in times of peace, and two in times of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, then I smoke two more.» I can't remember the rest.' He shook his head.
'No matter, dude,' said Sammy. 'You get the idea, Ricardo? I smoke a lot.'
'Sounds like it.'
'Uh-huh.'
Sammy had finished rolling the joint while Zeph had been singing. He lit it up and passed it straight to me. 'That's another thing about English dudes,' he wheezed, smoke coming out of his mouth in short bursts. 'You hang on to the joint for an age. Us Americans take a toke or two and pass it on.'
'It's true,' I replied, sucking in.
I was going to apologize for the poor manners of my countrymen but I collapsed into a coughing fit.
'Rickster!' said Zeph, patting me on the back. 'You gotta cough to get off.'
A couple of seconds later a blistering bolt of lightning crackled over the sea. After it was gone, Sammy said in an awestruck voice, 'Most totally excellent, dude!' Zeph quickly followed it up with, 'Like, utterly outrageous, compadre!'
I opened my mouth, then hesitated. 'Excellent, dude,' I muttered thoughtfully.
'Most excellent,' Sammy repeated.
I groaned.
'A problem, Ricardo?'
'You're winding me up.'
Sammy and Zeph looked at each other, then at me.
'Winding you up?'
'Having me on.'
Sammy frowned. 'Speak in English, my man.'
'This… Keanu Reeves thing. It's a joke, right? You don't really talk like that… do you?'
There was a brief silence, then Zeph swore. 'We're rumbled, Sammy.'
'Yeah,' Sammy replied. 'We overplayed our hand.'
They were Harvard students. Sammy was studying law, Zeph was studying Afro-American literature. Their surf act was a reaction to the condescending Europeans they kept meeting in Asia. 'It's a protest against bigotry,' Zeph explained, pulling knots out of his tangled blond locks. 'Europeans think all Americans are stupid, so we act stupid to confirm your prejudices. Then we reveal ourselves as intelligent, and by doing so, subvert the prejudice more effectively than we would with an immediate barrage of intellect – which only causes confusion and, ultimately, resentment.'
'Really?' I said, genuinely impressed. 'That's so elaborate.'
Zeph laughed. 'No, not really. We just do it for fun.'
They had other acts they liked to do. Zeph's favourite was the Surf Dude, but Sammy had another – he called it the Nigger Lover. As its name implies, it was a bit more risque than the Surf Dude.
'One time I got punched doing the Nigger Lover,' Sammy said, as he began to roll another joint. 'Knocked flat on my fuckin' back.'
I wasn't at all surprised. The act involved Sammy starting violent arguments with total strangers, insisting that because there's a country in Africa called Niger, all people from Niger were niggers –regardless of whether they were black or white.
'Aren't they called Nigerians?' I asked, bristling slightly, despite knowing I was being suckered.
Sammy shook his head. 'That's what everyone says, but I don't think so. Think about it. Nigeria is right below Niger. They border each other, so if they were both called Nigerians it would cause chaos.'
'Well, I still doubt they're called niggers.'
'Oh sure. Me too. I only say it to make a point… Fuck knows what the point is, but…' He drew on the joint and passed it on. 'It's like my grandad taught me. He was a colonel in the US Marines. Sammy, he'd say, the ends always justify the means. And you know what, Richard? He was right.'
I was about to disagree, but I realized he was winding me up again. Instead I replied, 'You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.'
Sammy smiled and turned to look at the sea.
'That's the boy, ' I thought I heard him say.
Lightning silhouetted the line of palm trees on the beach into a line of claws with pencil arms. The lizard scuttled out of my hand, startled by the flash.
'That's the kid.'
I frowned. 'Sorry? What was that?'
He turned back, also frowning, but with the smile still not faded from his lips. 'What was what?'
'Didn't you just say something?'
'Nope.'
I looked at Zeph. 'Didn't you hear him say something?'
Zeph shrugged. 'I was watching the lightning.'
'Oh.'
Just the dope talking, I guessed.
The rain continued as night fell. Étienne and Françoise stayed in their hut, and Zeph, Sammy and I stayed on the porch until we were too stoned to do anything but sit in silence, passing the odd comment between us if there was an impressive roll of thunder.
An hour or two after dark a tiny Thai woman came over to our porch from the restaurant, almost hidden under a giant beach parasol. She looked at the dope paraphernalia strewn about us with a wan smile, then handed Zeph a spare key to their room. I took that as my cue to crawl into bed. As I said good night, Sammy croaked, 'Hey, nice meeting you. Catch you tomorrow, dude.'
He seemed to say it without a trace of irony. I couldn't work out whether it was a continuation of his surfer joke or whether the grass had regressed his Harvard mind. It seemed too complicated to ask, so I said, 'Sure,' and shut the door behind me.
At around three in the morning I woke up for a short while, dry-mouthed, still high – and listened. I could hear cicadas, and waves sucking down the beach. The storm had blown itself out.
Spaced Invaders
The next morning the sky was still clouded over. As I walked out on to the porch, scattered with rain-soaked joint butts, I had the bizarre sensation that I was back in England. There was a slight chill in the air and I could smell wet earth and leaves. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I padded over the cool sand to Étienne and Françoise's hut. There was no answer, so I tried the restaurant and found them eating breakfast. I ordered a mango salad, thinking an exotic taste might compensate for the feeling of being at home, and sat down with them.
'Who did you meet last night?' said Étienne, as I pulled up a chair. 'We saw you talking outside your room.'
'We watched you from our window,' Françoise added.
I pulled out a cigarette to kill time before breakfast arrived. 'I met a couple of Americans. Zeph and Sammy.'
Françoise nodded. 'Did you tell them about our beach?'
'No.' I lit up. 'I didn't.'
'You shouldn't tell people about our beach.'
'I didn't tell them.'
'It should be a secret.'
I exhaled strongly. 'And that's why I didn't tell them, Françoise.'
Étienne interrupted. 'She was worried you might have…' The sentence trailed off into a nervous smile.
'It didn't even cross my mind,' I replied irritably, and stubbed out my cigarette hard.
It tasted like shit.
When the mango salad arrived I made an effort to relax. I told them about how the Americans had fooled me with their surfer act last night. Françoise thought the story was extremely funny. Her laughter partially defused the tension and we began making plans for the day ahead.
We decided that we had to hire a boat. The normal tour agencies wouldn't do because they'd be too organized, and we doubted we'd be able to slip away from their supervision. Instead we would need to find a fisherman who was unaware of or unconcerned about the rules on tourists in the marine park.
After breakfast we split up to improve our chances. I went north, towards Ko Mat Lang, and the other two went south, aiming for a small town we'd passed on the jeep ride. Our rendezvous was in three hours' time, back at our huts.
The sun came out as I set off down Chaweng, but it did little to salvage my mood. Flies buzzed around my head, smelling the sweat, and the walking became increasingly laborious as last night's rain dried off the sand.
I began counting the guest-houses I passed along the shore line. After twenty minutes I'd counted seventeen, and they were still showing no signs of thinning out. If anything, the palm trees were more cluttered with Ray-Bans and concrete patios than before.
In 1984 I was in my sitting room, playing on my Atari, and listened to the babysitter talk about Ko Samui. As I mopped the screen clear of space invaders, names and places stuck in my head.
Pattaya was a hell-hole. Chiang Mai was rainy and cold. Ko Samui was hot and beautiful. Ko Samui was where she had stayed with her boyfriend for five months, hanging out on the beach and doing strange things she was both reluctant and keen to talk about.
A-levels out of the way, my friends and I scattered ourselves around the globe. The next August we started coming back, and I learnt that my babysitter's paradise was yesterday's news. Ko Pha-Ngan, the next island along, was Thailand's new Mecca.
A few years later, as I checked my passport and confirmed my flight to Bangkok, a friend telephoned with advice. 'Give Ko Pha-Ngan a miss, Rich,' she said. 'Hat Rin's a long way past its sell-by date. They sell printed flyers for the full-moon parties. Ko Tao. That's where it's at.'
After an hour of walking I gave up trying to find a fisherman. The only Thais I met were selling gemstones and baseball caps. By the time I got back to my beach hut I was exhausted, sunburnt, and pissed off. I went straight to the restaurant and bought a packet of cigarettes. Then I chain-smoked in the shade of a palm tree, looking out for Étienne and Françoise, hoping they'd had better luck.
'Who did you meet last night?' said Étienne, as I pulled up a chair. 'We saw you talking outside your room.'
'We watched you from our window,' Françoise added.
I pulled out a cigarette to kill time before breakfast arrived. 'I met a couple of Americans. Zeph and Sammy.'
Françoise nodded. 'Did you tell them about our beach?'
'No.' I lit up. 'I didn't.'
'You shouldn't tell people about our beach.'
'I didn't tell them.'
'It should be a secret.'
I exhaled strongly. 'And that's why I didn't tell them, Françoise.'
Étienne interrupted. 'She was worried you might have…' The sentence trailed off into a nervous smile.
'It didn't even cross my mind,' I replied irritably, and stubbed out my cigarette hard.
It tasted like shit.
When the mango salad arrived I made an effort to relax. I told them about how the Americans had fooled me with their surfer act last night. Françoise thought the story was extremely funny. Her laughter partially defused the tension and we began making plans for the day ahead.
We decided that we had to hire a boat. The normal tour agencies wouldn't do because they'd be too organized, and we doubted we'd be able to slip away from their supervision. Instead we would need to find a fisherman who was unaware of or unconcerned about the rules on tourists in the marine park.
After breakfast we split up to improve our chances. I went north, towards Ko Mat Lang, and the other two went south, aiming for a small town we'd passed on the jeep ride. Our rendezvous was in three hours' time, back at our huts.
The sun came out as I set off down Chaweng, but it did little to salvage my mood. Flies buzzed around my head, smelling the sweat, and the walking became increasingly laborious as last night's rain dried off the sand.
I began counting the guest-houses I passed along the shore line. After twenty minutes I'd counted seventeen, and they were still showing no signs of thinning out. If anything, the palm trees were more cluttered with Ray-Bans and concrete patios than before.
In 1984 I was in my sitting room, playing on my Atari, and listened to the babysitter talk about Ko Samui. As I mopped the screen clear of space invaders, names and places stuck in my head.
Pattaya was a hell-hole. Chiang Mai was rainy and cold. Ko Samui was hot and beautiful. Ko Samui was where she had stayed with her boyfriend for five months, hanging out on the beach and doing strange things she was both reluctant and keen to talk about.
A-levels out of the way, my friends and I scattered ourselves around the globe. The next August we started coming back, and I learnt that my babysitter's paradise was yesterday's news. Ko Pha-Ngan, the next island along, was Thailand's new Mecca.
A few years later, as I checked my passport and confirmed my flight to Bangkok, a friend telephoned with advice. 'Give Ko Pha-Ngan a miss, Rich,' she said. 'Hat Rin's a long way past its sell-by date. They sell printed flyers for the full-moon parties. Ko Tao. That's where it's at.'
After an hour of walking I gave up trying to find a fisherman. The only Thais I met were selling gemstones and baseball caps. By the time I got back to my beach hut I was exhausted, sunburnt, and pissed off. I went straight to the restaurant and bought a packet of cigarettes. Then I chain-smoked in the shade of a palm tree, looking out for Étienne and Françoise, hoping they'd had better luck.
TV Heaven
Thais, or South-East Asians in general, make eerily convincing transvestites. Their slight builds and smooth faces are a recipe for success.
I saw a particularly stunning transvestite as I waited under the palm tree. His silicone breasts were perfectly formed and he had hips to die for. The only thing to betray his gender was his gold lamé dress – a bit too showy to be worn by a Thai girl on a stroll down Chaweng.
He was carrying a backgammon set under his arm, and as he slunk past he asked if I wanted to play a game.
'No thanks,' I replied with neurotic haste.
'Why?' he wanted to know. 'I think maybe you afrai' I win.'
I nodded.
'OK. Maybe you wan' play in bed?' He tugged at the long slit up the side of his dress, revealing fabulous legs. 'Maybe in bed I le' you win…'
'No thanks,' I said again, blushing slightly.
He shrugged and continued walking along the beach. A couple of beach huts down someone took him up on the backgammon offer. Curious, I tried to see who, but they were blocked by the trunk of a leaning coconut tree. A few minutes later I looked back and he was gone. I guessed he'd found his punter.
Étienne appeared not long after, beaming.
'Hey, Richard,' he said. 'Did you see the girl walking this way?'
'With a lamé dress?'
'Yes! My God, she was so beautiful!'
'She was.'
'Anyway, Richard. Come to the restaurant.' He reached out a hand and hauled me up. 'I think we have a boat to take us into the marine park.'
The man was the Thai version of a spiv. Instead of being lean and weasel-like, with a pencil moustache and a flash suit, he was short, fat, and wore drainpipe marbled jeans tucked into giant Reebok trainers.
'Tha' can be arrange',' he said, quoting from the universal phrase book of the entrepreneur. 'Of course, yes.' He grinned and made an expansive gesture with his arms. Gold sparkled in his mouth. 'No' difficul' for me to do tha'.'
Étienne nodded. So far he'd done all the bargaining, which was fine as far as I was concerned. I don't like dealing with money transactions in poor countries. I get confused between feeling that I shouldn't haggle with poverty and hating getting ripped off.
'Actually, my frien', your gui' book is no' correc'. You can stay Ko Phelong one nigh', two nigh' – is OK. Bu' this island you can only stay one nigh'.' He took Étienne's book and laid a chubby finger on an island close to Phelong.
Étienne looked at me and winked. From my memory of Mister Duck's map, which was back in the beach hut, our island was the next one along.
'OK,' said Étienne, and lowered his voice conspiratorially, even though there was no one around to hear. 'This is the island we want to see. But we want to stay more than one night. That is possible?'
The spiv furtively looked over his shoulder at the empty tables.
'Yes,' he whispered, leaning forward, then looked around again. 'Bu' is mo' money, you un'erstan'.'
The deal was eventually struck at 1,450 baht, diligently knocked down from 2,000 by Étienne. At six the next morning we were to meet the spiv in the restaurant and he would take us to his boat. Only then would we pay him the money, a point Étienne wisely insisted upon, and he would take us to the island. Three nights later he would come back to pick us up—our contingency plan in case we got stuck there.
That left us with only a couple of problems.
If we made it to the next island along, we would be missing when the spiv came to collect us. To deal with this, Étienne invented a story about some other friends we were going to meet there, so we might come back early – no cause for alarm.
Another difficulty was how to get from the drop-off island to the beach island. We could have asked the boat to take us directly there, but not knowing exactly what we were going to find on the beach, we didn't want to blunder in on a motor boat. Anyway, as the beach island was out of bounds to tourists, we thought it better to start out from one we were allowed to stay on – if only for one night.
Étienne and Françoise seemed far less concerned about this last step of the journey than I was. They had a simple solution – we would swim. By examining Mister Duck's map and the map in their guidebook they'd decided that the islands were roughly a kilometre apart. According to them, that was a manageable distance. I wasn't so confident, remembering the diving game from the day before. The tide had pulled us a long way down Chaweng beach as we swam. If the same thing happened between the islands, the length of the swim could effectively double as we corrected and recorrected our course.
The final problem was what we would do with our bags. Again, Étienne and Françoise had worked out a solution. Apparently they'd done a lot of planning last night while I was getting stoned. Later that day, sitting in the shallows with the wash collecting sand around our feet, they explained.
'The backpacks will not be a problem, Richard,' said Françoise. 'Actually, maybe they will help us to swim.'
I raised my eyebrows. 'How's that?'
'We need some plastic bags,' said Étienne. 'If we have some plastic bags we can tie them so water does not enter. Then… they float. The air inside.'
'Uh-huh. You think it'll work?'
Étienne shrugged. 'I think it will. I saw it on television.'
'On TV?'
'It was The A-Team '
'The A-Team? Oh, that's great. We'll be fine, then.'
I lay back in the water, propping myself up on my elbows.
'I think you are very lucky to have met us, Richard,' Étienne laughed. 'I think without us you could not reach this beach.'
'Yes,' Françoise said. 'But also we are lucky to meet him.'
'Oh, of course. Without your map we could not find the beach either.'
Françoise frowned, then smiled at me. 'Étienne! We are lucky to meet him anyway.'
I smiled back, noticing as I did so that the bad mood I'd been carrying all morning had completely lifted. 'We're all lucky,' I said happily.
Étienne nodded. 'Yes. We are.'
We sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in our luckiness. Then I stood up, clapping my hands together. 'Right. Why don't we go for a long swim now? It could be a practice.'
'It is a very good idea, Richard,' Étienne replied, also standing. 'Come on, Françoise.'
She shook her head and pouted. 'I think I will stay in the sun. I shall watch you two strong men from here. I will see who can swim the furthest.'
Doubt flickered in my mind. I looked at her, trying to see if her words were as loaded as they appeared. She was watching Étienne as he made his way into the sea, giving nothing away.
'That's it, then,' I thought. 'Just wishful thinking.'
But I failed to convince myself. As I waded after Étienne, I couldn't help wondering if Françoise's eyes were now on my back. Just before the water became deep enough to swim I needed to know, and glanced behind me. She had moved up the beach to the dry sand and was lying on her front, facing the land.
Just wishful thinking after all.
I saw a particularly stunning transvestite as I waited under the palm tree. His silicone breasts were perfectly formed and he had hips to die for. The only thing to betray his gender was his gold lamé dress – a bit too showy to be worn by a Thai girl on a stroll down Chaweng.
He was carrying a backgammon set under his arm, and as he slunk past he asked if I wanted to play a game.
'No thanks,' I replied with neurotic haste.
'Why?' he wanted to know. 'I think maybe you afrai' I win.'
I nodded.
'OK. Maybe you wan' play in bed?' He tugged at the long slit up the side of his dress, revealing fabulous legs. 'Maybe in bed I le' you win…'
'No thanks,' I said again, blushing slightly.
He shrugged and continued walking along the beach. A couple of beach huts down someone took him up on the backgammon offer. Curious, I tried to see who, but they were blocked by the trunk of a leaning coconut tree. A few minutes later I looked back and he was gone. I guessed he'd found his punter.
Étienne appeared not long after, beaming.
'Hey, Richard,' he said. 'Did you see the girl walking this way?'
'With a lamé dress?'
'Yes! My God, she was so beautiful!'
'She was.'
'Anyway, Richard. Come to the restaurant.' He reached out a hand and hauled me up. 'I think we have a boat to take us into the marine park.'
The man was the Thai version of a spiv. Instead of being lean and weasel-like, with a pencil moustache and a flash suit, he was short, fat, and wore drainpipe marbled jeans tucked into giant Reebok trainers.
'Tha' can be arrange',' he said, quoting from the universal phrase book of the entrepreneur. 'Of course, yes.' He grinned and made an expansive gesture with his arms. Gold sparkled in his mouth. 'No' difficul' for me to do tha'.'
Étienne nodded. So far he'd done all the bargaining, which was fine as far as I was concerned. I don't like dealing with money transactions in poor countries. I get confused between feeling that I shouldn't haggle with poverty and hating getting ripped off.
'Actually, my frien', your gui' book is no' correc'. You can stay Ko Phelong one nigh', two nigh' – is OK. Bu' this island you can only stay one nigh'.' He took Étienne's book and laid a chubby finger on an island close to Phelong.
Étienne looked at me and winked. From my memory of Mister Duck's map, which was back in the beach hut, our island was the next one along.
'OK,' said Étienne, and lowered his voice conspiratorially, even though there was no one around to hear. 'This is the island we want to see. But we want to stay more than one night. That is possible?'
The spiv furtively looked over his shoulder at the empty tables.
'Yes,' he whispered, leaning forward, then looked around again. 'Bu' is mo' money, you un'erstan'.'
The deal was eventually struck at 1,450 baht, diligently knocked down from 2,000 by Étienne. At six the next morning we were to meet the spiv in the restaurant and he would take us to his boat. Only then would we pay him the money, a point Étienne wisely insisted upon, and he would take us to the island. Three nights later he would come back to pick us up—our contingency plan in case we got stuck there.
That left us with only a couple of problems.
If we made it to the next island along, we would be missing when the spiv came to collect us. To deal with this, Étienne invented a story about some other friends we were going to meet there, so we might come back early – no cause for alarm.
Another difficulty was how to get from the drop-off island to the beach island. We could have asked the boat to take us directly there, but not knowing exactly what we were going to find on the beach, we didn't want to blunder in on a motor boat. Anyway, as the beach island was out of bounds to tourists, we thought it better to start out from one we were allowed to stay on – if only for one night.
Étienne and Françoise seemed far less concerned about this last step of the journey than I was. They had a simple solution – we would swim. By examining Mister Duck's map and the map in their guidebook they'd decided that the islands were roughly a kilometre apart. According to them, that was a manageable distance. I wasn't so confident, remembering the diving game from the day before. The tide had pulled us a long way down Chaweng beach as we swam. If the same thing happened between the islands, the length of the swim could effectively double as we corrected and recorrected our course.
The final problem was what we would do with our bags. Again, Étienne and Françoise had worked out a solution. Apparently they'd done a lot of planning last night while I was getting stoned. Later that day, sitting in the shallows with the wash collecting sand around our feet, they explained.
'The backpacks will not be a problem, Richard,' said Françoise. 'Actually, maybe they will help us to swim.'
I raised my eyebrows. 'How's that?'
'We need some plastic bags,' said Étienne. 'If we have some plastic bags we can tie them so water does not enter. Then… they float. The air inside.'
'Uh-huh. You think it'll work?'
Étienne shrugged. 'I think it will. I saw it on television.'
'On TV?'
'It was The A-Team '
'The A-Team? Oh, that's great. We'll be fine, then.'
I lay back in the water, propping myself up on my elbows.
'I think you are very lucky to have met us, Richard,' Étienne laughed. 'I think without us you could not reach this beach.'
'Yes,' Françoise said. 'But also we are lucky to meet him.'
'Oh, of course. Without your map we could not find the beach either.'
Françoise frowned, then smiled at me. 'Étienne! We are lucky to meet him anyway.'
I smiled back, noticing as I did so that the bad mood I'd been carrying all morning had completely lifted. 'We're all lucky,' I said happily.
Étienne nodded. 'Yes. We are.'
We sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in our luckiness. Then I stood up, clapping my hands together. 'Right. Why don't we go for a long swim now? It could be a practice.'
'It is a very good idea, Richard,' Étienne replied, also standing. 'Come on, Françoise.'
She shook her head and pouted. 'I think I will stay in the sun. I shall watch you two strong men from here. I will see who can swim the furthest.'
Doubt flickered in my mind. I looked at her, trying to see if her words were as loaded as they appeared. She was watching Étienne as he made his way into the sea, giving nothing away.
'That's it, then,' I thought. 'Just wishful thinking.'
But I failed to convince myself. As I waded after Étienne, I couldn't help wondering if Françoise's eyes were now on my back. Just before the water became deep enough to swim I needed to know, and glanced behind me. She had moved up the beach to the dry sand and was lying on her front, facing the land.
Just wishful thinking after all.
Eden
Sunset was spectacular. Red sky gently faded to deep blue, where a few bright stars already shone, and orange light threw elastic shadows down the beach as people strolled back to their huts.
I was stoned. I'd been dozing on the sand with Françoise and Étienne, recovering from our epic swim, when Sammy and Zeph turned up with half an ounce of grass wrapped in newspaper. They'd spent the day at Lamai hunting for their lost room key and found it hanging on a piece of driftwood, stuck into the sand. They'd bought the grass to celebrate.
'Someone must have put it there knowing we'd come looking,' Zeph had said as he sat down beside us. 'Isn't that such a decent thing to do?'
'Maybe it was a stupid thing to do,' Françoise had replied. 'Someone could have taken this key and robbed your room.'
'Well, uh, yeah, I suppose.' Then he'd looked at Françoise, obviously taking her in for the first time, and given his head a little shake. I think he was clearing a mental image that had just appeared. 'No, definitely. You're right.'
The sun had begun its rapid descent to the horizon as the grass began to take hold. Now we all sat, watching the colours in the sky as intently as if we were watching television.
'Hey,' said Sammy loudly, breaking us out of our reverie. 'Has anyone ever noticed that if you look up at the sky you can start to see animals and faces in the clouds?'
Étienne looked round. 'Have we ever noticed?' he said.
'Yeah,' Sammy continued. 'It's amazing. Hey, there's a little duck right above us, and that one looks like a man with a huge nose.'
'Actually, I have noticed this since I was a small child.'
'A small child?'
'Yes. Certainly.'
Sammy whistled. 'Shit. I've only just noticed it. Mind you, that's mainly to do with where I grew up.'
'Oh?' said Étienne.
'See, I grew up in Idaho.'
'Ah…' Étienne nodded. Then he looked confused. 'Yes, Idaho. I have heard of Idaho, but…'
'Well, you know about Idaho, huh? There's no clouds in Idaho.'
'No clouds?'
'Sure. Chicago, the windy city. Idaho, the cloudless state. Some weird weather thing to do with atmospheric pressure, I don't know.'
'There are no clouds at all?'
'Not one.' Sammy sat up on the sand. 'I can remember the first time I saw a cloud. It was in upstate New York, the summer of seventy-nine. I saw this vast fluffy thing in the sky, and I reached and tried to grab it… but it was too high.' Sammy smiled sadly. 'I turned to my Mom and said, «Why can't I have the candy floss, Mommy? Why?» Sammy choked and looked away. 'I'm sorry. It's just a stupid memory.'
Zeph leant over and patted him on the back. 'Hey man,' he murmured, just loud enough to hear. 'It's OK. Let it out. We're all friends here.'
'Yes,' said Étienne. 'We don't mind. Of course, everybody has a sad memory.'
Sammy spun around, his face all screwed up. 'You, Étienne? You have a sad memory too?'
'Oh, yes. I used to have a little red bicycle, but it was stolen by some thieves.'
Sammy's expression darkened. 'The bicycle thieves? They stole your little red bike?'
'Yes. I was seven.'
'Seven! ' Sammy shouted and thumped the ground with his fist, spraying everyone with sand.' Jesus! That makes me so fucking mad!'
There was a shocked silence. Then Sammy grabbed the Rizlas and started furiously rolling up, and Zeph changed the topic of conversation.
The outburst was probably a clever move. Étienne's response had been so charming that it would have been cruel to reveal the truth. Sammy's only way out was to follow the bluff to its natural conclusion. As far as I know, Étienne believed there were no clouds in Idaho to the day he died.
By the time we'd smoked the joint, the sun had almost disappeared. Just the slightest curve of yellow shimmered over the sea. A slight breeze picked up, sending a few loose Rizlas skimming along the sand. With the breeze came the smell of cooking – lemon grass and fried shell-fish – from the restaurant behind us.
'I'm hungry,' I muttered.
'Smells good, huh?' said Zeph. 'I could do with a big plate of chicken noodles.'
'Or dog noodles,' said Sammy. He turned to Françoise. 'We had dog noodles in Chiang Mai. Tasted like chicken. All those things –dog, lizard, frog, snake. They always taste like chicken.'
'How about rat?' I asked.
'Uh-huh, rat too. Distinctly chicken-like.'
Zeph picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers, trailing patterns between his legs. Then he coughed, almost in a formal way, as if he wanted everyone to pay attention. 'Hey,' he said. 'Do you know about Kentucky Fried Rat?'
I frowned. It sounded like another wind-up, and I felt that if Étienne was going to fall for it in the same kind of way I might start crying. I still had a picture in my head of his concerned face as he explained about his little red bike.
'No. What is it?' I said warily.
'It's one of those stories that get around.'
'Urban myths,' said Sammy. 'Someone got a small bone stuck in their throat. Then they got it analysed and it was a rat bone.'
'Yeah, and the person it happened to was a friend's aunt's cousin. It never happened to the person you're talking to.'
'Oh,' I said. 'I know.'
'Right. So there's a Kentucky Fried Rat doing the rounds at the moment. You heard it?'
I shook my head.
'About a beach. This amazing beach hidden somewhere, but no one knows where it is.'
I turned my head away. Down by the sea a Thai boy was playing with a piece of coconut husk, keeping it in the air using his knees and the sides of his feet. He timed a flick badly and the husk flew into the water. For a few moments he stood there with his hands on his hips, perhaps wondering if it was worth getting wet to retrieve it. Then he started jogging up the sand towards the guest-house.
'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.
I was stoned. I'd been dozing on the sand with Françoise and Étienne, recovering from our epic swim, when Sammy and Zeph turned up with half an ounce of grass wrapped in newspaper. They'd spent the day at Lamai hunting for their lost room key and found it hanging on a piece of driftwood, stuck into the sand. They'd bought the grass to celebrate.
'Someone must have put it there knowing we'd come looking,' Zeph had said as he sat down beside us. 'Isn't that such a decent thing to do?'
'Maybe it was a stupid thing to do,' Françoise had replied. 'Someone could have taken this key and robbed your room.'
'Well, uh, yeah, I suppose.' Then he'd looked at Françoise, obviously taking her in for the first time, and given his head a little shake. I think he was clearing a mental image that had just appeared. 'No, definitely. You're right.'
The sun had begun its rapid descent to the horizon as the grass began to take hold. Now we all sat, watching the colours in the sky as intently as if we were watching television.
'Hey,' said Sammy loudly, breaking us out of our reverie. 'Has anyone ever noticed that if you look up at the sky you can start to see animals and faces in the clouds?'
Étienne looked round. 'Have we ever noticed?' he said.
'Yeah,' Sammy continued. 'It's amazing. Hey, there's a little duck right above us, and that one looks like a man with a huge nose.'
'Actually, I have noticed this since I was a small child.'
'A small child?'
'Yes. Certainly.'
Sammy whistled. 'Shit. I've only just noticed it. Mind you, that's mainly to do with where I grew up.'
'Oh?' said Étienne.
'See, I grew up in Idaho.'
'Ah…' Étienne nodded. Then he looked confused. 'Yes, Idaho. I have heard of Idaho, but…'
'Well, you know about Idaho, huh? There's no clouds in Idaho.'
'No clouds?'
'Sure. Chicago, the windy city. Idaho, the cloudless state. Some weird weather thing to do with atmospheric pressure, I don't know.'
'There are no clouds at all?'
'Not one.' Sammy sat up on the sand. 'I can remember the first time I saw a cloud. It was in upstate New York, the summer of seventy-nine. I saw this vast fluffy thing in the sky, and I reached and tried to grab it… but it was too high.' Sammy smiled sadly. 'I turned to my Mom and said, «Why can't I have the candy floss, Mommy? Why?» Sammy choked and looked away. 'I'm sorry. It's just a stupid memory.'
Zeph leant over and patted him on the back. 'Hey man,' he murmured, just loud enough to hear. 'It's OK. Let it out. We're all friends here.'
'Yes,' said Étienne. 'We don't mind. Of course, everybody has a sad memory.'
Sammy spun around, his face all screwed up. 'You, Étienne? You have a sad memory too?'
'Oh, yes. I used to have a little red bicycle, but it was stolen by some thieves.'
Sammy's expression darkened. 'The bicycle thieves? They stole your little red bike?'
'Yes. I was seven.'
'Seven! ' Sammy shouted and thumped the ground with his fist, spraying everyone with sand.' Jesus! That makes me so fucking mad!'
There was a shocked silence. Then Sammy grabbed the Rizlas and started furiously rolling up, and Zeph changed the topic of conversation.
The outburst was probably a clever move. Étienne's response had been so charming that it would have been cruel to reveal the truth. Sammy's only way out was to follow the bluff to its natural conclusion. As far as I know, Étienne believed there were no clouds in Idaho to the day he died.
By the time we'd smoked the joint, the sun had almost disappeared. Just the slightest curve of yellow shimmered over the sea. A slight breeze picked up, sending a few loose Rizlas skimming along the sand. With the breeze came the smell of cooking – lemon grass and fried shell-fish – from the restaurant behind us.
'I'm hungry,' I muttered.
'Smells good, huh?' said Zeph. 'I could do with a big plate of chicken noodles.'
'Or dog noodles,' said Sammy. He turned to Françoise. 'We had dog noodles in Chiang Mai. Tasted like chicken. All those things –dog, lizard, frog, snake. They always taste like chicken.'
'How about rat?' I asked.
'Uh-huh, rat too. Distinctly chicken-like.'
Zeph picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers, trailing patterns between his legs. Then he coughed, almost in a formal way, as if he wanted everyone to pay attention. 'Hey,' he said. 'Do you know about Kentucky Fried Rat?'
I frowned. It sounded like another wind-up, and I felt that if Étienne was going to fall for it in the same kind of way I might start crying. I still had a picture in my head of his concerned face as he explained about his little red bike.
'No. What is it?' I said warily.
'It's one of those stories that get around.'
'Urban myths,' said Sammy. 'Someone got a small bone stuck in their throat. Then they got it analysed and it was a rat bone.'
'Yeah, and the person it happened to was a friend's aunt's cousin. It never happened to the person you're talking to.'
'Oh,' I said. 'I know.'
'Right. So there's a Kentucky Fried Rat doing the rounds at the moment. You heard it?'
I shook my head.
'About a beach. This amazing beach hidden somewhere, but no one knows where it is.'
I turned my head away. Down by the sea a Thai boy was playing with a piece of coconut husk, keeping it in the air using his knees and the sides of his feet. He timed a flick badly and the husk flew into the water. For a few moments he stood there with his hands on his hips, perhaps wondering if it was worth getting wet to retrieve it. Then he started jogging up the sand towards the guest-house.
'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.
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.'
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.'
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.