'It's a chimney. You can climb it without the rope, but the rope makes it easier.'
'And then you can walk around the cliff tops, back to the island.'
'Exactly. Want to try?'
'Sure,' I said quickly. I had the idea he was testing me.
Jed raised his eyebrows. 'Uh-huh. An adventurous type. I had you down for something else.'
That annoyed me. 'I found this place, and what's the big deal about climbing up the…'
He cut me off. 'Maybe this place found you,' he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Then suddenly he smiled. 'I'm taking the piss, Richard. Sorry. Anyway, we don't have time now. The journey will take four hours at least.'
I checked my watch. It was almost seven. 'So our ETA is eleven hundred hours.'
'Eleven hundred hours…' He chuckled and patted me on the arm, lapsing into an American accent. 'ETAs, FNGs. You're my kinda guy.'
Keaty had met Sal and Bugs in Chiang Rai. They'd gone on an illegal trek together over the Burmese border, and after the trek was over Sal had asked him if he was interested in being taken to paradise.
Gregorio had met Daffy in Sumatra. Gregorio had been beaten up and robbed, and when Daffy found him he was trying to hitch his way to Jakarta so he could contact the Spanish Embassy. Daffy had offered him cash to get to Java. Gregorio had been reluctant to accept, because he could see Daffy was short of money himself. Daffy had said 'Fuck Java,' and told him about the beach.
Sal had been on an eighteen-hour bus ride with Ella. Ella had a portable backgammon set.
Daffy had heard Cassie asking for a job in a Patpong bar.
Unhygienix had cooked Bugs a six-course meal on a houseboat in Srinagar, starting with hot coconut soup and ending with a mango split.
Moshe had caught a Manilan pickpocket trying to razor Daffy's backpack.
Bugs had worked with Jean, grape-picking in Blenheim, New Zealand.
Jed…
Jed had just turned up. Jumped from the waterfall, walked into the camp with a canvas overnight bag and a soaking wet bushel of grass under his arm.
Keaty said the camp had been thrown into instant panic. Was he alone, how had he learnt about the beach, were there more with him, more coming? Everyone ran around going crazy, then Sal, Bugs and Daffy turned up. They took him into the longhouse to talk while everyone waited outside. People heard Daffy shouting and Bugs trying to calm him down.
The cliffs were about thirty metres thick, but you couldn't see through them to the open sea because, not far in, the roof of the cave dropped below the water-level. I wasn't happy about swimming into the blackness but Jed assured me the roof rose up again quickly. 'It's a piece of piss,' he said. 'You're up again before you know it.'
'Really?'
'Yeah. It's low tide so we only have to swim half the cave. When it's high tide you have to swim the whole cave in one go, and even that's easy.' Then he took a deep breath and slipped under, leaving me alone.
I waited a minute, treading water and listening to my splashes echo round the walls. My feet and shins were cold, kicking in the chilled area, reminding me of the diving game off Ko Samui. 'Put me down as the adventurous type,' I said loudly. It was supposed to be a joke, something to give me courage, and in a way I suppose it worked. The echo spooked me so much that the inky water seemed less scary than hanging around.
Jed had only worked on an official work detail, carpentry, for six days. Then he'd been taken off and started doing his 'missions crap', as Keaty put it, above the waterfall.
People talked about it at first. They thought he ought to be working and were irritated that Sal, Bugs and Daffy refused to explain why he was allowed to do his own thing. But time passed, and as Jed's face became more familiar they stopped asking questions. The main thing was that no other travellers appeared immediately after him, which had been everyone's fear, and he brought in a steady supply of grass, previously a luxury in short supply.
Keaty had a theory. Because Jed hadn't been recruited he was an unknown quantity, and therefore, if he decided to leave, a danger to the camp's secrecy. So when Sal had realized Jed was the type who was into missions, she created one just to keep him happy.
Personally, I thought the theory was unlikely. Whatever Jed was doing, it was what Sal wanted him to be doing. Diplomacy wouldn't have entered into it.
Unusually for me, I kept my eyes shut as I swam, feeling my way along the cave roof with outstretched hands and only using my legs. I guessed that each kick made a metre and carefully counted my strokes to give me a sense of distance. After I'd counted ten I began to feel worried. An ache was building in my lungs, and Jed had been adamant that the underwater passage was no more than a forty-second swim. At fifteen I realized I had to make a decision about whether to turn back. I gave myself a limit of three more kicks, then my fingertips broke surface.
I knew there was something wrong as soon as I took a breath. The air was foul. So bad that even though I was bursting for oxygen, I could only manage short breaths before I started gagging. Instinctively, pointlessly, I looked around me, but the absence of light was so absolute that I couldn't see my fingers an inch from my face.
'Jed!' I called.
Not even an echo.
I reached up and my hand sank deep into something wet, with freezing tendrils that clung to my skin. A jolt of adrenalin rushed through my body and I snatched my hand back.
'It's seaweed,' I whispered, after my heart had stopped smashing into my eardrums. Seaweed, coating the rock, absorbing the noise.
I gagged again. Then I retched, pushing up a mouthful of vomit.
'Jed…'
Self-Help
The List
West More Land
Re-entry
Kampuchea
Blame
Through Early Morning Fog I See
'And then you can walk around the cliff tops, back to the island.'
'Exactly. Want to try?'
'Sure,' I said quickly. I had the idea he was testing me.
Jed raised his eyebrows. 'Uh-huh. An adventurous type. I had you down for something else.'
That annoyed me. 'I found this place, and what's the big deal about climbing up the…'
He cut me off. 'Maybe this place found you,' he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Then suddenly he smiled. 'I'm taking the piss, Richard. Sorry. Anyway, we don't have time now. The journey will take four hours at least.'
I checked my watch. It was almost seven. 'So our ETA is eleven hundred hours.'
'Eleven hundred hours…' He chuckled and patted me on the arm, lapsing into an American accent. 'ETAs, FNGs. You're my kinda guy.'
Keaty had met Sal and Bugs in Chiang Rai. They'd gone on an illegal trek together over the Burmese border, and after the trek was over Sal had asked him if he was interested in being taken to paradise.
Gregorio had met Daffy in Sumatra. Gregorio had been beaten up and robbed, and when Daffy found him he was trying to hitch his way to Jakarta so he could contact the Spanish Embassy. Daffy had offered him cash to get to Java. Gregorio had been reluctant to accept, because he could see Daffy was short of money himself. Daffy had said 'Fuck Java,' and told him about the beach.
Sal had been on an eighteen-hour bus ride with Ella. Ella had a portable backgammon set.
Daffy had heard Cassie asking for a job in a Patpong bar.
Unhygienix had cooked Bugs a six-course meal on a houseboat in Srinagar, starting with hot coconut soup and ending with a mango split.
Moshe had caught a Manilan pickpocket trying to razor Daffy's backpack.
Bugs had worked with Jean, grape-picking in Blenheim, New Zealand.
Jed…
Jed had just turned up. Jumped from the waterfall, walked into the camp with a canvas overnight bag and a soaking wet bushel of grass under his arm.
Keaty said the camp had been thrown into instant panic. Was he alone, how had he learnt about the beach, were there more with him, more coming? Everyone ran around going crazy, then Sal, Bugs and Daffy turned up. They took him into the longhouse to talk while everyone waited outside. People heard Daffy shouting and Bugs trying to calm him down.
The cliffs were about thirty metres thick, but you couldn't see through them to the open sea because, not far in, the roof of the cave dropped below the water-level. I wasn't happy about swimming into the blackness but Jed assured me the roof rose up again quickly. 'It's a piece of piss,' he said. 'You're up again before you know it.'
'Really?'
'Yeah. It's low tide so we only have to swim half the cave. When it's high tide you have to swim the whole cave in one go, and even that's easy.' Then he took a deep breath and slipped under, leaving me alone.
I waited a minute, treading water and listening to my splashes echo round the walls. My feet and shins were cold, kicking in the chilled area, reminding me of the diving game off Ko Samui. 'Put me down as the adventurous type,' I said loudly. It was supposed to be a joke, something to give me courage, and in a way I suppose it worked. The echo spooked me so much that the inky water seemed less scary than hanging around.
Jed had only worked on an official work detail, carpentry, for six days. Then he'd been taken off and started doing his 'missions crap', as Keaty put it, above the waterfall.
People talked about it at first. They thought he ought to be working and were irritated that Sal, Bugs and Daffy refused to explain why he was allowed to do his own thing. But time passed, and as Jed's face became more familiar they stopped asking questions. The main thing was that no other travellers appeared immediately after him, which had been everyone's fear, and he brought in a steady supply of grass, previously a luxury in short supply.
Keaty had a theory. Because Jed hadn't been recruited he was an unknown quantity, and therefore, if he decided to leave, a danger to the camp's secrecy. So when Sal had realized Jed was the type who was into missions, she created one just to keep him happy.
Personally, I thought the theory was unlikely. Whatever Jed was doing, it was what Sal wanted him to be doing. Diplomacy wouldn't have entered into it.
Unusually for me, I kept my eyes shut as I swam, feeling my way along the cave roof with outstretched hands and only using my legs. I guessed that each kick made a metre and carefully counted my strokes to give me a sense of distance. After I'd counted ten I began to feel worried. An ache was building in my lungs, and Jed had been adamant that the underwater passage was no more than a forty-second swim. At fifteen I realized I had to make a decision about whether to turn back. I gave myself a limit of three more kicks, then my fingertips broke surface.
I knew there was something wrong as soon as I took a breath. The air was foul. So bad that even though I was bursting for oxygen, I could only manage short breaths before I started gagging. Instinctively, pointlessly, I looked around me, but the absence of light was so absolute that I couldn't see my fingers an inch from my face.
'Jed!' I called.
Not even an echo.
I reached up and my hand sank deep into something wet, with freezing tendrils that clung to my skin. A jolt of adrenalin rushed through my body and I snatched my hand back.
'It's seaweed,' I whispered, after my heart had stopped smashing into my eardrums. Seaweed, coating the rock, absorbing the noise.
I gagged again. Then I retched, pushing up a mouthful of vomit.
'Jed…'
Self-Help
Once I'd started, I kept throwing up for several minutes. Every time my stomach contracted I couldn't help doubling up and I'd vomit with my head underwater, then have to straighten up quickly to snatch a breath before the next heave. The vomiting finally stopped, although it took three dry retches before my stomach would concede it was empty. Then I was left, floating in blackness and amino acids, wondering what the fuck I should do next.
My first thought was that I should continue down the passage –I was assuming that I'd surfaced too soon, tricked by an air pocket left open by an extra-low tide. But that was easier said than done. While I'd been throwing up I'd twisted and turned twenty times, and was now completely disorientated. That led me to my second thought: I should work out the dimensions of the air pocket. This, at least, was something I could accomplish. Steeling myself, I reached up again and pushed my hand into the seaweed. I flinched, but this time I didn't pull my hand back, and through the slimy growth I felt rock, an arm's length above my head.
Several fumbling minutes later I'd created a good mental image of my surroundings. The pocket was about two metres wide and three metres long. On one side there was a narrow shelf, big enough to sit on, and everywhere else the walls curved straight down from the ceiling and ran into the water. There, the mental image began to fall apart. By groping around with my hands and feet, I seemed to find four passages leading into the rock, but it was hard to judge underwater. There could even have been more.
It was a grim discovery. If there'd been only two passages, then whichever direction I chose to swim, I'd either come up in the lagoon or the ocean. But these other passages could lead to nowhere. I could find myself swimming into a maze.
'Two out of four,' I heard myself muttering. 'One in two. Fifty fifty.' But it didn't matter how I put it. The odds sounded bad.
The alternative was to stay put and hope Jed came to find me, but it wasn't very appealing. I felt like I'd lose the plot if I waited in the pitch blackness, swimming around in my own sick, and I hadn't the faintest idea how long it would be before I'd start breathing carbon dioxide. This was' an idea I found particularly frightening. I could see myself huddled up on the small rock-shelf, gradually succumbing to a sinister sleepiness.
For a minute I stayed relatively still, treading water and going over my options. Then I started to panic. I splashed around wildly, bumping into the walls, choking, whimpering. I snatched at the seaweed above my head and pulled it down in great clumps. I lashed out, smashed my elbow on the rock-shelf, felt my skin tear and hot blood run over my arm. I shouted, 'Help.'
'Help.'
My voice sounded pathetic, like I was crying. It was a shocking noise and it jolted me into a second of silence. A second later, my fear was swamped by a sudden tidal wave of disgust. Ignoring the foul taste, I took a huge gulp of air and ducked underwater. I didn't count the strokes this time, or worry about feeling my way. I took whichever of the four passages I found first and swam as hard as I could.
My first thought was that I should continue down the passage –I was assuming that I'd surfaced too soon, tricked by an air pocket left open by an extra-low tide. But that was easier said than done. While I'd been throwing up I'd twisted and turned twenty times, and was now completely disorientated. That led me to my second thought: I should work out the dimensions of the air pocket. This, at least, was something I could accomplish. Steeling myself, I reached up again and pushed my hand into the seaweed. I flinched, but this time I didn't pull my hand back, and through the slimy growth I felt rock, an arm's length above my head.
Several fumbling minutes later I'd created a good mental image of my surroundings. The pocket was about two metres wide and three metres long. On one side there was a narrow shelf, big enough to sit on, and everywhere else the walls curved straight down from the ceiling and ran into the water. There, the mental image began to fall apart. By groping around with my hands and feet, I seemed to find four passages leading into the rock, but it was hard to judge underwater. There could even have been more.
It was a grim discovery. If there'd been only two passages, then whichever direction I chose to swim, I'd either come up in the lagoon or the ocean. But these other passages could lead to nowhere. I could find myself swimming into a maze.
'Two out of four,' I heard myself muttering. 'One in two. Fifty fifty.' But it didn't matter how I put it. The odds sounded bad.
The alternative was to stay put and hope Jed came to find me, but it wasn't very appealing. I felt like I'd lose the plot if I waited in the pitch blackness, swimming around in my own sick, and I hadn't the faintest idea how long it would be before I'd start breathing carbon dioxide. This was' an idea I found particularly frightening. I could see myself huddled up on the small rock-shelf, gradually succumbing to a sinister sleepiness.
For a minute I stayed relatively still, treading water and going over my options. Then I started to panic. I splashed around wildly, bumping into the walls, choking, whimpering. I snatched at the seaweed above my head and pulled it down in great clumps. I lashed out, smashed my elbow on the rock-shelf, felt my skin tear and hot blood run over my arm. I shouted, 'Help.'
'Help.'
My voice sounded pathetic, like I was crying. It was a shocking noise and it jolted me into a second of silence. A second later, my fear was swamped by a sudden tidal wave of disgust. Ignoring the foul taste, I took a huge gulp of air and ducked underwater. I didn't count the strokes this time, or worry about feeling my way. I took whichever of the four passages I found first and swam as hard as I could.
The List
I was in a bad way. My legs and hands were knocking painfully against the passage walls and there was a pressure deep inside my chest, something the size of a grapefruit trying to drive itself upwards through my neck. After perhaps fifty seconds I began to see red through the darkness. 'It means I'm dying,' I told myself as the colour grew brighter and the grapefruit reached my Adam's apple. In the middle of the redness a spot of light started to form –yellow, but I expected it to turn white. I was remembering a TV programme about how dying people see lights at the end of tunnels as their brain cells shut down. Suddenly resigned, my kicks grew weaker. My powerful breast-stroke became an erratic underwater doggy paddle. When I felt rock scraping along the length of my stomach I realized I was no longer aware if I was facing up or down.
To say that this pissed me off sounds flippant, but that's the best way I can describe it. I think that a part of my mind, however bewildered, resented being wrong about the split-second theory in video games. I wasn't raging or fighting in the way I'd always imagined I would. I was just fading away. The resentment provided a new burst of energy, and with it came the realization that the redness might not be death after all. It might be light, sunlight, passing through the water and the lids of my tightly shut eyes. Drawing from my last reserve of strength, I forced myself to make one more hard kick.
I came straight up into brightness and fresh air. I blinked the glare out of my eyes, gasping like a speared fish, and slowly Jed came into focus. He was sitting on a rock. Beside him was a long boat, painted the same blue-green as the sea.
'Hey,' he said, not looking round. 'You took your time.'
I couldn't answer at first because I was hyperventilating.
'What were you doing back there? You've been ages.'
'Drowning,' I finally managed to say.
'Yeah? You know anything about engines? I've tried to get this going but I can't.'
I splashed over to him and tried to haul myself on to the rock, but I was too weak and I slipped back into the water. 'Didn't you hear me?' I panted.
'Sure.' He started absently running the blade of his knife against his beard, as if he were shaving. 'Now, I know it's got enough gas because the tank's full, and I know the Swedes said they had it running the other day.'
'Jed! I got stuck in some air pocket with more exits than…' I couldn't think of anything famous with a large number of exits 'I nearly drowned!'
For the first time Jed looked at me. 'An air pocket?' he said, lowering the knife. 'Are you sure?'
'Of course I'm fucking sure!'
'Where?'
'I don't know, do I? Somewhere… in there.' I turned back to the black entrance of the cave and shivered.
Jed frowned. 'Well… that's pretty weird. I've been through there a hundred times and I've never found any air pocket.'
'You think I'm lying?'
'No… And there were several exits?'
'Four at least. I could feel them and I didn't know which one I should take. It was a fucking nightmare.'
'So you must have strayed down a split off the main passage. Shit, Richard, I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know that could happen. I must have been through there so many times that I automatically follow the same route.' He tutted. 'But it's amazing. Everybody on the beach has swum through that cave and no one's ever got lost.'
I sighed. 'That's my fucking luck.'
'Bad luck, all right.' He held out a hand and pulled me on to the rock.
'I might have died.'
Jed nodded. 'You might have. I'm sorry.'
A voice in my head was telling me that I ought to lose my temper, but there didn't seem anything to lose my temper at. Instead I lay back and looked up at the clouds. A silver speck was threading a vapour trail across the sky and I imagined people inside peering out of the windows, watching the Gulf of Thailand unfold, wondering what things could be happening on the islands beneath them. One or two of them, I was sure, must be looking at my island.
They'd never have guessed what was happening in a million years. Thinking this, I managed a dizzy smile.
Jed brought me back to earth by saying, 'You smell of sick.'
'I've been swimming in the stuff,' I replied.
'Your elbow's bleeding too.'
I glanced down, and at once my arm began to sting.
'Jesus. I'm a wreck.'
'No.' Jed shook his head. 'It's the boat that's the wreck.'
The boat was twenty feet long and four feet wide, with a single bamboo outrigger on the right-hand side. On the left side it was lying flat against the rocks, tied up, protected by a line of buffers made of tightly rolled palm leaves. It was also protected, and hidden, by the mini-harbour formed by the entrance to the cave.
Inside the boat were some of the Swedes' fishing implements. Their spears were cut longer than ours and they had a landing-net, I noticed enviously. Not that we needed a landing-net inside the lagoon, but it would have been nice to have one all the same. They had lines and hooks too, which explained why they always caught the biggest fish.
Despite what Jed had said, I took to the boat immediately. I liked its South-East-Asian shape, the painted flourishes on its prow, the strong odour of grease and salt-soaked wood. Most of all I liked the fact that all this stuff was familiar to me, remembered from other island trips in other places. I felt pleased to have a store of memories which enabled me to feel nostalgic about such exotic things.
Collecting memories, or experiences, was my primary goal when I first started travelling. I went about it in the same way as a stamp-collector goes about collecting stamps, carrying around with me a mental list of all the things I had yet to see or do. Most of the list was pretty banal. I wanted to see the Taj Mahal, Borobudur, the Rice Terraces in Bagio, Angkor Wat. Less banal, or maybe more so, was that I wanted to witness extreme poverty. I saw it as a necessary experience for anyone who wanted to appear worldly and interesting.
Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to the more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with a truly obsessive zeal, along with being tear-gassed and hearing gunshots fired in anger.
Another list item was having a brush with my own death. In Hong Kong, aged eighteen, I'd met an Old-Asia hand who'd told me a story about having been held up at gunpoint in Vietnam. The story ended with him having the gun shoved in his chest and being told he was going to be shot. 'The funny thing about facing death,' he'd said, 'is that you find you aren't afraid. If anything, you're calm. Alert, naturally, but calm.'
I'd nodded vigorously. I wasn't agreeing with him out of personal experience. I was just too thrilled to do anything but move my head.
The dope fields had fitted neatly into this category of the list, and so did the air pocket. The only downside was that I wasn't able to claim being alert (naturally) but calm, which was a line I fully intended to use one day.
Twenty minutes later I was ready to get going.
'Right,' I said, sitting up. 'Let's start up the engine.'
'The engine's fucked. You can't start it. I think we might have to go back and get the Swedes to sort it out.'
'Sure I can start it. I've been on this kind of boat loads of times.'
Jed looked doubtful but gestured for me to give it a try.
I crawled into the boat and slid down to the stern end, and to my great delight I recognized the engine type. It was started like a lawnmower, by winding a rope around a flywheel and giving it a hard tug. A closer look revealed a knot at one end of the rope and a groove in the wheel for it to fit into.
'I've tried that fifty times,' Jed muttered, as I put the knot in place.
'It's in the wrist,' I replied with deliberate cheerfulness. 'You have to start slowly then snap it back.'
'Uh-huh?'
When I was ready to pull I gave the engine a last cursory check. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but I wanted to give the impression that I was, and my shallowness paid off. Almost obscured by layers of grease and dirt I noticed a small metal switch with 'on/off' written beneath it. I glanced backwards over my shoulder and discreetly flicked it to the correct setting.
'Here we go!' I shouted and gave the rope a yank. Without even a splutter the engine roared into life.
To say that this pissed me off sounds flippant, but that's the best way I can describe it. I think that a part of my mind, however bewildered, resented being wrong about the split-second theory in video games. I wasn't raging or fighting in the way I'd always imagined I would. I was just fading away. The resentment provided a new burst of energy, and with it came the realization that the redness might not be death after all. It might be light, sunlight, passing through the water and the lids of my tightly shut eyes. Drawing from my last reserve of strength, I forced myself to make one more hard kick.
I came straight up into brightness and fresh air. I blinked the glare out of my eyes, gasping like a speared fish, and slowly Jed came into focus. He was sitting on a rock. Beside him was a long boat, painted the same blue-green as the sea.
'Hey,' he said, not looking round. 'You took your time.'
I couldn't answer at first because I was hyperventilating.
'What were you doing back there? You've been ages.'
'Drowning,' I finally managed to say.
'Yeah? You know anything about engines? I've tried to get this going but I can't.'
I splashed over to him and tried to haul myself on to the rock, but I was too weak and I slipped back into the water. 'Didn't you hear me?' I panted.
'Sure.' He started absently running the blade of his knife against his beard, as if he were shaving. 'Now, I know it's got enough gas because the tank's full, and I know the Swedes said they had it running the other day.'
'Jed! I got stuck in some air pocket with more exits than…' I couldn't think of anything famous with a large number of exits 'I nearly drowned!'
For the first time Jed looked at me. 'An air pocket?' he said, lowering the knife. 'Are you sure?'
'Of course I'm fucking sure!'
'Where?'
'I don't know, do I? Somewhere… in there.' I turned back to the black entrance of the cave and shivered.
Jed frowned. 'Well… that's pretty weird. I've been through there a hundred times and I've never found any air pocket.'
'You think I'm lying?'
'No… And there were several exits?'
'Four at least. I could feel them and I didn't know which one I should take. It was a fucking nightmare.'
'So you must have strayed down a split off the main passage. Shit, Richard, I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know that could happen. I must have been through there so many times that I automatically follow the same route.' He tutted. 'But it's amazing. Everybody on the beach has swum through that cave and no one's ever got lost.'
I sighed. 'That's my fucking luck.'
'Bad luck, all right.' He held out a hand and pulled me on to the rock.
'I might have died.'
Jed nodded. 'You might have. I'm sorry.'
A voice in my head was telling me that I ought to lose my temper, but there didn't seem anything to lose my temper at. Instead I lay back and looked up at the clouds. A silver speck was threading a vapour trail across the sky and I imagined people inside peering out of the windows, watching the Gulf of Thailand unfold, wondering what things could be happening on the islands beneath them. One or two of them, I was sure, must be looking at my island.
They'd never have guessed what was happening in a million years. Thinking this, I managed a dizzy smile.
Jed brought me back to earth by saying, 'You smell of sick.'
'I've been swimming in the stuff,' I replied.
'Your elbow's bleeding too.'
I glanced down, and at once my arm began to sting.
'Jesus. I'm a wreck.'
'No.' Jed shook his head. 'It's the boat that's the wreck.'
The boat was twenty feet long and four feet wide, with a single bamboo outrigger on the right-hand side. On the left side it was lying flat against the rocks, tied up, protected by a line of buffers made of tightly rolled palm leaves. It was also protected, and hidden, by the mini-harbour formed by the entrance to the cave.
Inside the boat were some of the Swedes' fishing implements. Their spears were cut longer than ours and they had a landing-net, I noticed enviously. Not that we needed a landing-net inside the lagoon, but it would have been nice to have one all the same. They had lines and hooks too, which explained why they always caught the biggest fish.
Despite what Jed had said, I took to the boat immediately. I liked its South-East-Asian shape, the painted flourishes on its prow, the strong odour of grease and salt-soaked wood. Most of all I liked the fact that all this stuff was familiar to me, remembered from other island trips in other places. I felt pleased to have a store of memories which enabled me to feel nostalgic about such exotic things.
Collecting memories, or experiences, was my primary goal when I first started travelling. I went about it in the same way as a stamp-collector goes about collecting stamps, carrying around with me a mental list of all the things I had yet to see or do. Most of the list was pretty banal. I wanted to see the Taj Mahal, Borobudur, the Rice Terraces in Bagio, Angkor Wat. Less banal, or maybe more so, was that I wanted to witness extreme poverty. I saw it as a necessary experience for anyone who wanted to appear worldly and interesting.
Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to the more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with a truly obsessive zeal, along with being tear-gassed and hearing gunshots fired in anger.
Another list item was having a brush with my own death. In Hong Kong, aged eighteen, I'd met an Old-Asia hand who'd told me a story about having been held up at gunpoint in Vietnam. The story ended with him having the gun shoved in his chest and being told he was going to be shot. 'The funny thing about facing death,' he'd said, 'is that you find you aren't afraid. If anything, you're calm. Alert, naturally, but calm.'
I'd nodded vigorously. I wasn't agreeing with him out of personal experience. I was just too thrilled to do anything but move my head.
The dope fields had fitted neatly into this category of the list, and so did the air pocket. The only downside was that I wasn't able to claim being alert (naturally) but calm, which was a line I fully intended to use one day.
Twenty minutes later I was ready to get going.
'Right,' I said, sitting up. 'Let's start up the engine.'
'The engine's fucked. You can't start it. I think we might have to go back and get the Swedes to sort it out.'
'Sure I can start it. I've been on this kind of boat loads of times.'
Jed looked doubtful but gestured for me to give it a try.
I crawled into the boat and slid down to the stern end, and to my great delight I recognized the engine type. It was started like a lawnmower, by winding a rope around a flywheel and giving it a hard tug. A closer look revealed a knot at one end of the rope and a groove in the wheel for it to fit into.
'I've tried that fifty times,' Jed muttered, as I put the knot in place.
'It's in the wrist,' I replied with deliberate cheerfulness. 'You have to start slowly then snap it back.'
'Uh-huh?'
When I was ready to pull I gave the engine a last cursory check. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but I wanted to give the impression that I was, and my shallowness paid off. Almost obscured by layers of grease and dirt I noticed a small metal switch with 'on/off' written beneath it. I glanced backwards over my shoulder and discreetly flicked it to the correct setting.
'Here we go!' I shouted and gave the rope a yank. Without even a splutter the engine roared into life.
West More Land
At the point we set off, noisily chugging out from the mini-harbour in a cloud of petrol fumes, I was keen to get to Ko Pha-Ngan. Although I'd been told it was past its best, Hat Rin still had a slightly legendary reputation. Like Patpong Road or the opium treks in the Golden Triangle, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I was also pleased to be doing something important for the beach. I knew that Sal appreciated my volunteering for such an obviously unpopular task, and I felt like I was involved in something serious and worth while.
But an hour later, as the shape of Ko Pha-Ngan was forming on the horizon, my keenness began to be replaced by anxiety. It was the same feeling I'd had under the waterfall. I was suddenly aware that encountering the World would bring back all the things I'd been doing such a good job of forgetting. I wasn't exactly sure what those things were, because I'd forgotten them, but I was pretty convinced I didn't want to be reminded. Also, although we couldn't really talk over the noise of the engine, I sensed Jed was thinking along the same lines. He was sitting as rigidly as the choppy motion of the boat would allow, one hand gripping the tiller, keeping his eyes absolutely fixed on the island ahead.
I reached into my shorts pocket for a cigarette. I'd taken a new pack – hoping the seal would keep them waterproof – and matches. They were in the plastic film-carton that Keaty used to keep his Rizlas dry. 'This is the most precious possession I have,' he'd said before handing it over. 'Guard it with your life.' 'Count on it,' I'd replied earnestly, imagining a three-hour boat trip without nicotine.
Lighting up turned into a bit of a drama because the matches were a crappy Thai brand and they splintered if you pushed them too hard. The first three broke and the next four blew out in the wind. I'd only taken ten in the film can, and was beginning to lose my cool, when I finally managed to get the cigarette lit up. Jed lit one too, off the end of mine, then we both went back to gazing at Ko Pha-Ngan. Between the blue and the green I could now make out a strip of white sand.
To avoid thinking about the World, I started thinking about Françoise.
A few days earlier Étienne and I had been having a diving competition near the coral garden about who could make the smallest splash. When we asked her to judge it, she watched us both and then shrugged, saying, 'You are both very good.' Étienne looked surprised. 'Yes,' he said impatiently. 'But who is better?' Françoise shrugged again. 'What shall I say?' she laughed. 'Really. You are both as good as the other.' Then she gave us both a little kiss on the cheek.
Her reaction had surprised me too. The truth is, Étienne was a much better diver than I was. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt. He could do effortless backwards dives, swan-dives, jack-knifes, weird twists without a name, all sorts of things. I, however, could only manage a backwards dive with a violent jerk that usually flipped me right back on to my feet. As for who could make the smallest splash, Étienne entered the water as straight as a bamboo spear. I didn't need to see myself to know that I was more like a tree-trunk, branches and all.
So when Françoise said that we were both as good as each other, she was lying. A funny sort of lie. Not malicious, apparently diplomatic, but vaguely puzzling in a way I found hard to pin down.
'West… more… land…' I heard over the noise of the engine. Jed was calling to me, snapping me out of my day-dreaming.
I looked round and cupped my hand to my ear. 'What?' I yelled.
'I'm heading west! There's more open beach to land! Less beach huts!'
I gave him the thumbs up and turned back to the prow. While I'd been thinking about Françoise, Ko Pha-Ngan had got much closer. I could now see the trunks and leaves of the coconut trees, and the mid-day shadows beneath them.
But an hour later, as the shape of Ko Pha-Ngan was forming on the horizon, my keenness began to be replaced by anxiety. It was the same feeling I'd had under the waterfall. I was suddenly aware that encountering the World would bring back all the things I'd been doing such a good job of forgetting. I wasn't exactly sure what those things were, because I'd forgotten them, but I was pretty convinced I didn't want to be reminded. Also, although we couldn't really talk over the noise of the engine, I sensed Jed was thinking along the same lines. He was sitting as rigidly as the choppy motion of the boat would allow, one hand gripping the tiller, keeping his eyes absolutely fixed on the island ahead.
I reached into my shorts pocket for a cigarette. I'd taken a new pack – hoping the seal would keep them waterproof – and matches. They were in the plastic film-carton that Keaty used to keep his Rizlas dry. 'This is the most precious possession I have,' he'd said before handing it over. 'Guard it with your life.' 'Count on it,' I'd replied earnestly, imagining a three-hour boat trip without nicotine.
Lighting up turned into a bit of a drama because the matches were a crappy Thai brand and they splintered if you pushed them too hard. The first three broke and the next four blew out in the wind. I'd only taken ten in the film can, and was beginning to lose my cool, when I finally managed to get the cigarette lit up. Jed lit one too, off the end of mine, then we both went back to gazing at Ko Pha-Ngan. Between the blue and the green I could now make out a strip of white sand.
To avoid thinking about the World, I started thinking about Françoise.
A few days earlier Étienne and I had been having a diving competition near the coral garden about who could make the smallest splash. When we asked her to judge it, she watched us both and then shrugged, saying, 'You are both very good.' Étienne looked surprised. 'Yes,' he said impatiently. 'But who is better?' Françoise shrugged again. 'What shall I say?' she laughed. 'Really. You are both as good as the other.' Then she gave us both a little kiss on the cheek.
Her reaction had surprised me too. The truth is, Étienne was a much better diver than I was. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt. He could do effortless backwards dives, swan-dives, jack-knifes, weird twists without a name, all sorts of things. I, however, could only manage a backwards dive with a violent jerk that usually flipped me right back on to my feet. As for who could make the smallest splash, Étienne entered the water as straight as a bamboo spear. I didn't need to see myself to know that I was more like a tree-trunk, branches and all.
So when Françoise said that we were both as good as each other, she was lying. A funny sort of lie. Not malicious, apparently diplomatic, but vaguely puzzling in a way I found hard to pin down.
'West… more… land…' I heard over the noise of the engine. Jed was calling to me, snapping me out of my day-dreaming.
I looked round and cupped my hand to my ear. 'What?' I yelled.
'I'm heading west! There's more open beach to land! Less beach huts!'
I gave him the thumbs up and turned back to the prow. While I'd been thinking about Françoise, Ko Pha-Ngan had got much closer. I could now see the trunks and leaves of the coconut trees, and the mid-day shadows beneath them.
Re-entry
A hundred or so metres from the shore, Jed cut the engine so we could paddle the rest of the way in. The idea was to look like day-trippers but we needn't have bothered. The stretch of beach we landed on was empty apart from a few beat-up old beach huts, and they looked like no one had stayed in them for quite a while.
We jumped out and waded to the sand, dragging the boat by the outrigger. 'Are we going to leave the boat here?' I asked when we were clear of the water.
'No, we'll have to hide it.' Jed pointed to the tree-line. 'Maybe up there. Go and check it out. Make sure this area is as empty as it seems.'
'OK.'
I started jogging up the beach, then slowed to a walk almost
immediately. My sense of balance still thought I was at sea and I was
swaying drunkenly from side to side. It passed quickly, but for a
couple of minutes I actually had to concentrate to keep from falling
' over.
Not far from where we'd landed I found two palms that were far enough apart to let the outrigger through and close enough together to look inconspicuous. Between them was a bush with a large canopy which would cover the boat completely, especially with the help of a few well-placed branches, and the nearest of the ramshackle beach huts was a good fifty metres away.
'Here seems fine,' I called to Jed.
'Right. Give us a hand then.'
Everything would have been much easier if there'd been a third person to help us. With the weight of the engine it took both of us to lift the stern – we had to keep the propeller up to stop it from getting damaged—so the front end kept sliding away from us. It was hard enough on the sand, but getting it over the small grass verge was a nightmare. We had to shunt it in short back-breaking bursts, none of which seemed to take us more than a foot.
'Bloody hell,' I panted, after the boat had swivelled away from the tree-line for the twentieth time. 'Is it always this hard?'
'Is what always this hard?'
'Rice Running.'
'Of course,' Jed replied, smoothing the sweat out of his beard. A stream of oily drops ran down his wrist and dripped off his elbow. 'Why do you think nobody wants to do it?'
Eventually we managed to manoeuvre the boat between the trees and under the bush. After we'd knocked up some camouflage, there was no way anyone would have spotted it unless they were going out of their way to look. We were even worried that we'd have trouble finding it again ourselves, so we marked the spot by pushing a forked stick into the sand.
We were completely exhausted, but there were two consolations. One was that it would be easier getting the boat back to the water, because it would be downhill and the ocean made for a bigger target than the space between two palm trees. The other was that we could treat ourselves to a big meal as soon as we got to Hat Rin.
We set off in high spirits, discussing which soft drinks we were going to order and whether Sprite had the edge on Coke. Jed noticed the couple first, but we were already a fair distance from the boat so we didn't worry too much. As we passed them I looked straight at their faces, not for any reason except to be ready with a smile if they said hello.
They didn't. They kept their eyes pointed at the ground, and by their expressions I could see they were putting the same concentration into walking as I had earlier.
'Did you see them?' I said when they were out of earshot. 'Wasted by lunch-time.'
'Liquid lunch.'
'Powdered lunch.'
Jed nodded, then hawked up and spat on the sand. 'Fucking Freaks.'
An hour later we were walking past rows of busy beach huts and weaving between sunbathers and Frisbee games. I was surprised that people weren't taking more notice of us. Everyone looked so strange to me that I couldn't believe I didn't look equally strange to them.
'Let's eat,' said Jed, when we were about halfway down Hat Rin, so we walked into the nearest café and sat down. Jed looked over the menu while I continued to marvel at our surroundings. The concrete under my toes felt particularly weird, and the plastic chair I was sitting on. It was just a standard chair—the same kind I used to have at school, curved seat with a hole in the back, V-shaped metal legs – but I found it bizarrely uncomfortable. I couldn't work out the right way to sit on it. Either I was slithering down or I was perched on the edge, both of which were useless.
'How the hell do you do this?' I muttered.
Jed looked up from the menu.
'I can't seem to sit…'
He started laughing. 'Does your head in, doesn't it? All this.'
'It sure does.'
'What about your reflection?'
'…How do you mean?'
'When was the last time you saw your reflection?'
I shrugged. There was a make-up mirror near the shower hut which the men used for shaving, but it only showed a tiny area of your face at any one time. Apart from that, I hadn't seen myself for over four weeks.
'There's a sink and a mirror over there. Go and have a look. You'll get a real shock.'
I frowned, suddenly worried. 'Why? Has something happened to my face?'
'No. Just go and have a look. You'll see.'
Shock was right. The person who gazed back at me over the sink was a stranger. My skin was darker than I'd imagined it could possibly get, my black hair had been sun-bleached almost brown and matted into curls, and my teeth were so white they seemed to jump out of my face. I also looked old – twenty-six or twenty-seven – and there were some freckles on my nose. The freckles were a particular shock. I never get freckles.
I stared at my reflection for five minutes at least, transfixed. I could have stared for an hour if Jed hadn't called me back to order some food.
'What did you think?' he asked, as I wandered back to the table, grinning like an idiot.
'Really weird. Why don't you have a look too? It's great.'
'No… I haven't seen myself for six months now. I'm saving up to completely freak myself out.'
'Six months!'
'Uh-huh. Maybe more.' He tossed me the menu. 'Come on. What'll it be? I'm starving.'
I glanced down the enormous list, pausing on banana pancakes but thinking the better of it.
'I believe I'd like a couple of cheeseburgers.'
'Cheeseburgers. Anything else?'
'Uh… OK. Spicy chicken noodles too. We 're in Thailand, after all.'
Jed stood up, glancing over his shoulder towards the sunbathers on the beach. 'I'll take your word for it,' he said dryly, then went to place our order.
While we waited for our food we watched TV. There was a video at the far end of the café and it was playing Schindler's List. Schindler was on a horse watching the ghettos being emptied, and he'd noticed a little girl in a red coat.
'How about that coat?' Jed asked, sipping his Coke.
I sipped my Sprite. 'What about it?'
'Do you reckon they painted it on the film with a brush?'
'On each frame? Like animation?'
'Yeah.'
'No way. They would have done it with a computer, like Jurassic Park.'
'Oh…' Jed drained the bottle and smacked his lips. 'It's the real thing.'
I frowned. 'Schindler's List? '
'No, you twerp. Coke.'
The food must have taken ages because by the time it arrived, Schindler was looking at the red coat again. If you've seen the film you'll know that's an hour after he first sees it, if not more. Luckily, I discovered that the café had an old Space Invaders machine, so for me the waiting wasn't so bad.
We jumped out and waded to the sand, dragging the boat by the outrigger. 'Are we going to leave the boat here?' I asked when we were clear of the water.
'No, we'll have to hide it.' Jed pointed to the tree-line. 'Maybe up there. Go and check it out. Make sure this area is as empty as it seems.'
'OK.'
I started jogging up the beach, then slowed to a walk almost
immediately. My sense of balance still thought I was at sea and I was
swaying drunkenly from side to side. It passed quickly, but for a
couple of minutes I actually had to concentrate to keep from falling
' over.
Not far from where we'd landed I found two palms that were far enough apart to let the outrigger through and close enough together to look inconspicuous. Between them was a bush with a large canopy which would cover the boat completely, especially with the help of a few well-placed branches, and the nearest of the ramshackle beach huts was a good fifty metres away.
'Here seems fine,' I called to Jed.
'Right. Give us a hand then.'
Everything would have been much easier if there'd been a third person to help us. With the weight of the engine it took both of us to lift the stern – we had to keep the propeller up to stop it from getting damaged—so the front end kept sliding away from us. It was hard enough on the sand, but getting it over the small grass verge was a nightmare. We had to shunt it in short back-breaking bursts, none of which seemed to take us more than a foot.
'Bloody hell,' I panted, after the boat had swivelled away from the tree-line for the twentieth time. 'Is it always this hard?'
'Is what always this hard?'
'Rice Running.'
'Of course,' Jed replied, smoothing the sweat out of his beard. A stream of oily drops ran down his wrist and dripped off his elbow. 'Why do you think nobody wants to do it?'
Eventually we managed to manoeuvre the boat between the trees and under the bush. After we'd knocked up some camouflage, there was no way anyone would have spotted it unless they were going out of their way to look. We were even worried that we'd have trouble finding it again ourselves, so we marked the spot by pushing a forked stick into the sand.
We were completely exhausted, but there were two consolations. One was that it would be easier getting the boat back to the water, because it would be downhill and the ocean made for a bigger target than the space between two palm trees. The other was that we could treat ourselves to a big meal as soon as we got to Hat Rin.
We set off in high spirits, discussing which soft drinks we were going to order and whether Sprite had the edge on Coke. Jed noticed the couple first, but we were already a fair distance from the boat so we didn't worry too much. As we passed them I looked straight at their faces, not for any reason except to be ready with a smile if they said hello.
They didn't. They kept their eyes pointed at the ground, and by their expressions I could see they were putting the same concentration into walking as I had earlier.
'Did you see them?' I said when they were out of earshot. 'Wasted by lunch-time.'
'Liquid lunch.'
'Powdered lunch.'
Jed nodded, then hawked up and spat on the sand. 'Fucking Freaks.'
An hour later we were walking past rows of busy beach huts and weaving between sunbathers and Frisbee games. I was surprised that people weren't taking more notice of us. Everyone looked so strange to me that I couldn't believe I didn't look equally strange to them.
'Let's eat,' said Jed, when we were about halfway down Hat Rin, so we walked into the nearest café and sat down. Jed looked over the menu while I continued to marvel at our surroundings. The concrete under my toes felt particularly weird, and the plastic chair I was sitting on. It was just a standard chair—the same kind I used to have at school, curved seat with a hole in the back, V-shaped metal legs – but I found it bizarrely uncomfortable. I couldn't work out the right way to sit on it. Either I was slithering down or I was perched on the edge, both of which were useless.
'How the hell do you do this?' I muttered.
Jed looked up from the menu.
'I can't seem to sit…'
He started laughing. 'Does your head in, doesn't it? All this.'
'It sure does.'
'What about your reflection?'
'…How do you mean?'
'When was the last time you saw your reflection?'
I shrugged. There was a make-up mirror near the shower hut which the men used for shaving, but it only showed a tiny area of your face at any one time. Apart from that, I hadn't seen myself for over four weeks.
'There's a sink and a mirror over there. Go and have a look. You'll get a real shock.'
I frowned, suddenly worried. 'Why? Has something happened to my face?'
'No. Just go and have a look. You'll see.'
Shock was right. The person who gazed back at me over the sink was a stranger. My skin was darker than I'd imagined it could possibly get, my black hair had been sun-bleached almost brown and matted into curls, and my teeth were so white they seemed to jump out of my face. I also looked old – twenty-six or twenty-seven – and there were some freckles on my nose. The freckles were a particular shock. I never get freckles.
I stared at my reflection for five minutes at least, transfixed. I could have stared for an hour if Jed hadn't called me back to order some food.
'What did you think?' he asked, as I wandered back to the table, grinning like an idiot.
'Really weird. Why don't you have a look too? It's great.'
'No… I haven't seen myself for six months now. I'm saving up to completely freak myself out.'
'Six months!'
'Uh-huh. Maybe more.' He tossed me the menu. 'Come on. What'll it be? I'm starving.'
I glanced down the enormous list, pausing on banana pancakes but thinking the better of it.
'I believe I'd like a couple of cheeseburgers.'
'Cheeseburgers. Anything else?'
'Uh… OK. Spicy chicken noodles too. We 're in Thailand, after all.'
Jed stood up, glancing over his shoulder towards the sunbathers on the beach. 'I'll take your word for it,' he said dryly, then went to place our order.
While we waited for our food we watched TV. There was a video at the far end of the café and it was playing Schindler's List. Schindler was on a horse watching the ghettos being emptied, and he'd noticed a little girl in a red coat.
'How about that coat?' Jed asked, sipping his Coke.
I sipped my Sprite. 'What about it?'
'Do you reckon they painted it on the film with a brush?'
'On each frame? Like animation?'
'Yeah.'
'No way. They would have done it with a computer, like Jurassic Park.'
'Oh…' Jed drained the bottle and smacked his lips. 'It's the real thing.'
I frowned. 'Schindler's List? '
'No, you twerp. Coke.'
The food must have taken ages because by the time it arrived, Schindler was looking at the red coat again. If you've seen the film you'll know that's an hour after he first sees it, if not more. Luckily, I discovered that the café had an old Space Invaders machine, so for me the waiting wasn't so bad.
Kampuchea
Jed gave me a choice. I could go with him to sort out the rice or I could stay on the beach and meet him later. He didn't really need my help so I decided to stay. In any case, I had my own shopping to do. I wanted to restock my supply of cigarettes and get more batteries for Keaty's Gameboy.
In one of the other Hat Rin cafes I found a shop – or a glass counter with a few goods beneath it – and after buying the batteries and cigarettes it turned out I still had plenty of money left to get a few presents.
First of all I bought some soap for Unhygienix. That was tricky because they had several varieties – some western, some Thai, but none of them the brand I'd seen Unhygienix using. I rummaged through the bars for a while before finding one called 'Luxume'. It said it was 'Luxuriant yet perfumed'. The 'yet' turned my head and the 'perfumed' clinched it, knowing how important this was to him.
Then I bought a load of razors, which I thought I'd share out between me, Étienne, Gregorio and Keaty. Then I bought a tube of Colgate for Françoise. Nobody used toothpaste on the beach; there were ten toothbrushes which were shared by everyone, although many couldn't be bothered and just chewed a twig each morning. Françoise didn't mind sharing a toothbrush but she did miss the toothpaste, so I knew she'd appreciate the gift.
The next purchase was several packets of boiled sweets – I didn't want anybody to go empty-handed – and finally I bought a pair of shorts. Mine were getting ragged and I couldn't see them lasting more than a month or two.
With my shopping done I had nothing left to do. I had another Sprite, which didn't last long, so I decided to pass the time by walking the length of Hat Rin. After only a few hundred metres I gave up. There was nothing much to see apart from beach huts. Instead, I sat myself down on the sand and paddled my feet in the water, imagining the warm reactions I'd get when I handed out my presents. I envisaged an Asterix-style scene, returning from the adventure to a huge feast. We'd have to do without wild boars and Gaulish wine, but we'd have plenty of dope and more rice than you could shake a stick at.
'Saigon,' said a male voice, and broke me straight out of my daydreaming. 'Mad.'
'Sounds it,' said another voice, female.
'We were there two months. The place is like Bangkok ten fuckin' years ago. Probably better.'
I looked round and saw four sunbathers. Two girls, English, and two boys, Australians. All of them were talking very loudly, so loudly it was like their conversation was aimed more at passers-by than each other.
'Yeah, but if Saigon was mad, then Kampuchea was fuckin' unreal.'
This was the second Aussie speaking – a skinny guy with very cropped hair, long sideburns, and a tiny patch of beard on his chin.
'We were there for six weeks. Would have stayed longer but we ran out of cash. Had to get back to Thailand to pick up a fuckin' wire.'
'Good scene,' the first agreed. 'Could have stayed six months.'
'Could have stayed six years.'
I looked back to the sea. It was a familiar enough exchange, I thought to myself, and not worth tuning in to. But then I found that I couldn't tune it out. It wasn't the volume of their chattering; I was intrigued that the guy had been talking about Kampuchea. I wondered if this was the new term for Cambodia.
Without thinking it over any more than that, I leant towards them. 'Hey,' I said. 'Out of interest, why do you call Cambodia Kampuchea?'
All four faces looked at me.
'I mean,' I continued, 'it's Cambodia, right?'
The second Aussie shook his head, not like he was disagreeing with me, like he was trying to figure out who I was.
'It's Cambodia, right?' I repeated, in case he hadn't heard me.
'Kampuchea. I've just been there.'
I got up and walked over. 'But called Kampuchea by who?'
'Cambodians.'
'Not Kampucheans, then.'
He frowned. 'What?'
'I'm just interested to hear how you picked up the word «Kampuchea».'
'Mate,' the first Aussie interrupted, 'why does it matter what we call Kampuchea?'
'It isn't that it matters. I was just interested because I thought Kampuchea was a Khmer Rouge name. I mean, I'm probably wrong. Maybe it's just the old-fashioned name for Cambodia, but…'
The sentence trailed off. I was suddenly aware that all four of them were looking at me as though they thought I was insane. I smiled uncertainly. 'It isn't a big deal… I was interested, that's all… Kampuchea… It sounded strange…'
Silence.
I began to feel myself blushing. I knew I'd made some kind of faux pas but I didn't know what it might be. With my smile getting increasingly desperate I tried to explain myself better, but my confusion and nervousness only made things worse. 'I was just sitting over there and you said «Kampuchea», which I thought was a Khmer Rouge name, but you also used the old name of Ho Chi Minh City… Saigon… Not that I'm making a parallel between the VC and the Khmer Rouge, obviously… but…'
'So what?'
This was a fair point. I considered it for a couple of seconds, then said, 'So nothing, I guess…'
'Then why are you bothering us, mate?'
I couldn't think what to say. I shrugged awkwardly and turned to walk back to my shopping bag, and behind me I heard one of them mutter, 'Another fuckin' space-head. Can't move for them, man.' The comment made my ears burn and the tips of my fingers tingle. I hadn't had that feeling since I was a little kid.
When I sat back down I felt terrible. My good mood was completely gone. I couldn't understand what I'd said that was so wrong. All I'd been doing was joining in their conversation, which didn't seem like such a terrible thing to do. It was the beach and the World, I decided coldly. My beach, where you could walk into a conversation at any time between anybody, and the World, where you couldn't.
A few minutes later I got up to go. I'd noticed that their talking had become quieter and I had the miserable feeling that they were talking about me. I found a suitably secluded palm tree a short way up the beach and settled beneath it. I'd arranged to meet Jed at seven, back at the café where we'd eaten lunch, so I still had a few hours to kill. Too many hours. The wait was beginning to feel like it might be an ordeal.
I chain-smoked two and a half cigarettes. I wanted to chain-smoke three, or even more, but the third gave me a five-minute coughing fit. Reluctantly I stubbed it out and pushed it into the sand.
My embarrassment had turned quickly to anger. Before I'd been looking at Hat Rin with a detached curiosity, and now I was looking at it with hatred. I could sense shit all around me; Thais smiling like sharks, and careless hedonism, too diligently pursued to ring true. Most of all, I could pick up the scent of decay. It hung over Hat Rin like the sandflies that hung over the sunbathers, zoning in on the smell of sweat and sweet tanning lotion. The serious travellers had already moved on to the next island in the chain, the intermediate travellers were wondering where all the life had gone, and the tourist hordes were ready to descend on their freshly beaten track.
For the first time I understood the true preciousness of our hidden beach. To imagine Hat Rin's fate unfolding in the lagoon made my blood run cold. I began scanning the dark bodies that lounged around me as if I were photographing the enemy, familiarizing myself with the images, filing them away. Occasionally couples walked near me and I caught snatches of their conversations. I must have heard twenty different accents and languages. Most I didn't understand, but they all sounded like threats.
Time dragged with only these thoughts for company, so when my eyes grew heavy I let them close. The heat and the day's early start had caught up with me. An afternoon siesta would be a welcome retreat.
In one of the other Hat Rin cafes I found a shop – or a glass counter with a few goods beneath it – and after buying the batteries and cigarettes it turned out I still had plenty of money left to get a few presents.
First of all I bought some soap for Unhygienix. That was tricky because they had several varieties – some western, some Thai, but none of them the brand I'd seen Unhygienix using. I rummaged through the bars for a while before finding one called 'Luxume'. It said it was 'Luxuriant yet perfumed'. The 'yet' turned my head and the 'perfumed' clinched it, knowing how important this was to him.
Then I bought a load of razors, which I thought I'd share out between me, Étienne, Gregorio and Keaty. Then I bought a tube of Colgate for Françoise. Nobody used toothpaste on the beach; there were ten toothbrushes which were shared by everyone, although many couldn't be bothered and just chewed a twig each morning. Françoise didn't mind sharing a toothbrush but she did miss the toothpaste, so I knew she'd appreciate the gift.
The next purchase was several packets of boiled sweets – I didn't want anybody to go empty-handed – and finally I bought a pair of shorts. Mine were getting ragged and I couldn't see them lasting more than a month or two.
With my shopping done I had nothing left to do. I had another Sprite, which didn't last long, so I decided to pass the time by walking the length of Hat Rin. After only a few hundred metres I gave up. There was nothing much to see apart from beach huts. Instead, I sat myself down on the sand and paddled my feet in the water, imagining the warm reactions I'd get when I handed out my presents. I envisaged an Asterix-style scene, returning from the adventure to a huge feast. We'd have to do without wild boars and Gaulish wine, but we'd have plenty of dope and more rice than you could shake a stick at.
'Saigon,' said a male voice, and broke me straight out of my daydreaming. 'Mad.'
'Sounds it,' said another voice, female.
'We were there two months. The place is like Bangkok ten fuckin' years ago. Probably better.'
I looked round and saw four sunbathers. Two girls, English, and two boys, Australians. All of them were talking very loudly, so loudly it was like their conversation was aimed more at passers-by than each other.
'Yeah, but if Saigon was mad, then Kampuchea was fuckin' unreal.'
This was the second Aussie speaking – a skinny guy with very cropped hair, long sideburns, and a tiny patch of beard on his chin.
'We were there for six weeks. Would have stayed longer but we ran out of cash. Had to get back to Thailand to pick up a fuckin' wire.'
'Good scene,' the first agreed. 'Could have stayed six months.'
'Could have stayed six years.'
I looked back to the sea. It was a familiar enough exchange, I thought to myself, and not worth tuning in to. But then I found that I couldn't tune it out. It wasn't the volume of their chattering; I was intrigued that the guy had been talking about Kampuchea. I wondered if this was the new term for Cambodia.
Without thinking it over any more than that, I leant towards them. 'Hey,' I said. 'Out of interest, why do you call Cambodia Kampuchea?'
All four faces looked at me.
'I mean,' I continued, 'it's Cambodia, right?'
The second Aussie shook his head, not like he was disagreeing with me, like he was trying to figure out who I was.
'It's Cambodia, right?' I repeated, in case he hadn't heard me.
'Kampuchea. I've just been there.'
I got up and walked over. 'But called Kampuchea by who?'
'Cambodians.'
'Not Kampucheans, then.'
He frowned. 'What?'
'I'm just interested to hear how you picked up the word «Kampuchea».'
'Mate,' the first Aussie interrupted, 'why does it matter what we call Kampuchea?'
'It isn't that it matters. I was just interested because I thought Kampuchea was a Khmer Rouge name. I mean, I'm probably wrong. Maybe it's just the old-fashioned name for Cambodia, but…'
The sentence trailed off. I was suddenly aware that all four of them were looking at me as though they thought I was insane. I smiled uncertainly. 'It isn't a big deal… I was interested, that's all… Kampuchea… It sounded strange…'
Silence.
I began to feel myself blushing. I knew I'd made some kind of faux pas but I didn't know what it might be. With my smile getting increasingly desperate I tried to explain myself better, but my confusion and nervousness only made things worse. 'I was just sitting over there and you said «Kampuchea», which I thought was a Khmer Rouge name, but you also used the old name of Ho Chi Minh City… Saigon… Not that I'm making a parallel between the VC and the Khmer Rouge, obviously… but…'
'So what?'
This was a fair point. I considered it for a couple of seconds, then said, 'So nothing, I guess…'
'Then why are you bothering us, mate?'
I couldn't think what to say. I shrugged awkwardly and turned to walk back to my shopping bag, and behind me I heard one of them mutter, 'Another fuckin' space-head. Can't move for them, man.' The comment made my ears burn and the tips of my fingers tingle. I hadn't had that feeling since I was a little kid.
When I sat back down I felt terrible. My good mood was completely gone. I couldn't understand what I'd said that was so wrong. All I'd been doing was joining in their conversation, which didn't seem like such a terrible thing to do. It was the beach and the World, I decided coldly. My beach, where you could walk into a conversation at any time between anybody, and the World, where you couldn't.
A few minutes later I got up to go. I'd noticed that their talking had become quieter and I had the miserable feeling that they were talking about me. I found a suitably secluded palm tree a short way up the beach and settled beneath it. I'd arranged to meet Jed at seven, back at the café where we'd eaten lunch, so I still had a few hours to kill. Too many hours. The wait was beginning to feel like it might be an ordeal.
I chain-smoked two and a half cigarettes. I wanted to chain-smoke three, or even more, but the third gave me a five-minute coughing fit. Reluctantly I stubbed it out and pushed it into the sand.
My embarrassment had turned quickly to anger. Before I'd been looking at Hat Rin with a detached curiosity, and now I was looking at it with hatred. I could sense shit all around me; Thais smiling like sharks, and careless hedonism, too diligently pursued to ring true. Most of all, I could pick up the scent of decay. It hung over Hat Rin like the sandflies that hung over the sunbathers, zoning in on the smell of sweat and sweet tanning lotion. The serious travellers had already moved on to the next island in the chain, the intermediate travellers were wondering where all the life had gone, and the tourist hordes were ready to descend on their freshly beaten track.
For the first time I understood the true preciousness of our hidden beach. To imagine Hat Rin's fate unfolding in the lagoon made my blood run cold. I began scanning the dark bodies that lounged around me as if I were photographing the enemy, familiarizing myself with the images, filing them away. Occasionally couples walked near me and I caught snatches of their conversations. I must have heard twenty different accents and languages. Most I didn't understand, but they all sounded like threats.
Time dragged with only these thoughts for company, so when my eyes grew heavy I let them close. The heat and the day's early start had caught up with me. An afternoon siesta would be a welcome retreat.
Blame
The music started up at eight, which was lucky, or I might have slept until midnight. Up and down the beach, four or five different sound systems blasted out, each with its own agenda. I could only hear two clearly, the ones on either side of me, but all the bass lines seemed to be vibrating through my head. Swearing and rubbing the daze out of my eyes, I jumped up and ran back down the beach to the café.
The café was now packed with people but I spotted Jed immediately. He was by the same table we'd sat at earlier. He had a bottle of beer in his hands and was looking extremely pissed off.
'Where the fuck have you been?' he said angrily, when I sat beside him. 'I've been waiting.'
'I'm sorry,' I replied. 'I fell asleep… I've had a bad day.'
'You did, huh? Well I'll just bet it wasn't a patch on mine.'
'Why, what happened? Didn't you get the rice?'
'I got the rice, Richard. Don't worry about that.'
I looked at him hard. There was a worrying note of menace in his voice. 'What then?'
'You tell me.'
'Tell you…?'
'About two Yanks.'
'Two Yanks?'
Jed took a huge gulp of beer. 'Two Yanks I heard talking about a place called Eden in the marine park.'
'…Oh shit.'
'They know you, Richard. They used your name. And they've got a map.' He squeezed his eyes shut like he was fighting to keep control of his temper. 'A fucking map, Richard! They were showing it to some Germans! And who knows who else has seen it?'
I shook my head. I was feeling dazed. '…I'd forgotten… I'd…'
'Who are they?'
'Jed, wait. You don't understand. I didn't tell them about the beach. They told me. They already knew about it.'
He put his bottle on the table with a thump. 'Who are they?'
'…Zeph and Sammy. I met them on Ko Samui.'
'Go on.'
'They were just these two guys in the hut next to mine. We spent some time together, and the night before we were going to leave for Phelong they started talking about the beach.'
'Unprompted?'
'Yes! Of course!'
'So you drew them a map.'
'No! I didn't say a thing, Jed! None of us did.'
'Then where did the map come from?'
'The next morning… I drew it and pushed it under their door…' I pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it. My hands shook badly and it took me three attempts.
'Why?'
'I was worried!'
'You just drew them the map? They didn't even ask for it!'
'I didn't know if the beach really existed. We could have been aiming at nowhere. I had to tell someone where we were going in case something went wrong.'
'What could go wrong?'
'I don't know! We didn't know anything! I just didn't want us disappearing with nobody knowing where we'd gone!'
Jed put his head in his hands. 'This could be bad, Richard.'
'We could have disappeared into the marine park and no one would have…'
He nodded slowly. 'I understand that.'
We sat in silence for several minutes, Jed staring at the table and me looking anywhere but at him. Over by the Space Invaders machine a tubby black girl with corn-rows was trying to hit the last invader. It was moving so fast it was a blur. She missed it on every pass, and just before it reached the bottom line she turned away, disgusted. The sound of talking and music was too loud for me to hear her exploding spaceship, but I saw it on her face.
Eventually, Jed lifted up his head. 'These two Yanks. Do you think they'll make the trip?'
'…They might do, Jed. I don't know them well enough.'
'Fuck. This could be so bad.' Then suddenly he reached over and laid his hand on my forearm. 'Listen,' he said. 'Are you blaming yourself?'
I nodded.
'Don't. I'm serious. Whatever happens with these Yanks, it isn't your fault. If I'd been in your shoes I might have done the same thing.'
'How do you mean, 'whatever happens'?' I said warily.
'I mean… I mean whatever happens I don't want you to blame yourself. It's important, Richard. If you really want someone to blame, blame Daffy.' He sighed deeply. 'Or me.'
'You?'
'Me.'
I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but he held up a hand. 'There's no point talking about it.'
'OK,' I said quietly.
'Look, we might not even have a problem. In a few weeks the Yanks will probably be flying off home and the map should go with them. Even if they stay in Thailand there's a good chance they won't bother trying to reach us. They seemed like a couple of air-heads, and the trip isn't easy.'
'I hope you're right,' I said hollowly, remembering how skilled they were at their surfer act.
'Hoping's about all we can do. That and wait…' He finished his beer. 'We've got to get the rice back to the boat tonight because I don't want to be carrying those sacks in broad daylight. Are you ready to go?'
'Yes.'
He stood up. 'Good. Then let's get to it.'
Around the back of the café was a thin passage between two beach huts, and under a tarpaulin were our rice sacks. We put them on the tarpaulin so we could drag them along the sand, and holding a corner each, set off on the long trek back to the boat.
Just after leaving Hat Rin, we had a fag break and ate a few of the boiled sweets from my bag of presents.
'I'm sorry if I flew off at you,' Jed said as I passed him the packet.
'It's all right.'
'No. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it.'
I shrugged. I felt like I did.
'I didn't ask you why your day was so bad.'
'Oh. It's nothing… It was just Hat Rin. The place, or the people… They gave me the creeps.'
'Me too. Fucked up, isn't it?'
'Fucked up… Yeah. It is.'
'Richard?'
'Yes?'
'When we get back to the camp, don't mention this thing with the Yanks.'
'But…'
'Sal and Bugs. I don't think they'll understand.'
I looked at him but he was busy trying to get the wrapper off one of the sweets.
'…If you think that's the right thing to do.'
'Yeah. I do.'
It took us another three hours to get back to the marker. The forked stick showed up clearly in the bright moonlight, and we left the sacks beside it. Then I went to check on the boat while Jed moved the sacks off the tarpaulin and spread it across the sand. It was pitch black under the bushes but I could feel the curved prow. That was enough for me. As long as we had our means of escape, I could relax. Jed was already asleep by the time I got back to the marker. I lay beside him and looked at the stars, remembering the way I'd looked at the stars with Françoise. Somewhere amongst them was a parallel world where I'd kept the map to myself, I thought, and wished it could have been this one.
The café was now packed with people but I spotted Jed immediately. He was by the same table we'd sat at earlier. He had a bottle of beer in his hands and was looking extremely pissed off.
'Where the fuck have you been?' he said angrily, when I sat beside him. 'I've been waiting.'
'I'm sorry,' I replied. 'I fell asleep… I've had a bad day.'
'You did, huh? Well I'll just bet it wasn't a patch on mine.'
'Why, what happened? Didn't you get the rice?'
'I got the rice, Richard. Don't worry about that.'
I looked at him hard. There was a worrying note of menace in his voice. 'What then?'
'You tell me.'
'Tell you…?'
'About two Yanks.'
'Two Yanks?'
Jed took a huge gulp of beer. 'Two Yanks I heard talking about a place called Eden in the marine park.'
'…Oh shit.'
'They know you, Richard. They used your name. And they've got a map.' He squeezed his eyes shut like he was fighting to keep control of his temper. 'A fucking map, Richard! They were showing it to some Germans! And who knows who else has seen it?'
I shook my head. I was feeling dazed. '…I'd forgotten… I'd…'
'Who are they?'
'Jed, wait. You don't understand. I didn't tell them about the beach. They told me. They already knew about it.'
He put his bottle on the table with a thump. 'Who are they?'
'…Zeph and Sammy. I met them on Ko Samui.'
'Go on.'
'They were just these two guys in the hut next to mine. We spent some time together, and the night before we were going to leave for Phelong they started talking about the beach.'
'Unprompted?'
'Yes! Of course!'
'So you drew them a map.'
'No! I didn't say a thing, Jed! None of us did.'
'Then where did the map come from?'
'The next morning… I drew it and pushed it under their door…' I pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it. My hands shook badly and it took me three attempts.
'Why?'
'I was worried!'
'You just drew them the map? They didn't even ask for it!'
'I didn't know if the beach really existed. We could have been aiming at nowhere. I had to tell someone where we were going in case something went wrong.'
'What could go wrong?'
'I don't know! We didn't know anything! I just didn't want us disappearing with nobody knowing where we'd gone!'
Jed put his head in his hands. 'This could be bad, Richard.'
'We could have disappeared into the marine park and no one would have…'
He nodded slowly. 'I understand that.'
We sat in silence for several minutes, Jed staring at the table and me looking anywhere but at him. Over by the Space Invaders machine a tubby black girl with corn-rows was trying to hit the last invader. It was moving so fast it was a blur. She missed it on every pass, and just before it reached the bottom line she turned away, disgusted. The sound of talking and music was too loud for me to hear her exploding spaceship, but I saw it on her face.
Eventually, Jed lifted up his head. 'These two Yanks. Do you think they'll make the trip?'
'…They might do, Jed. I don't know them well enough.'
'Fuck. This could be so bad.' Then suddenly he reached over and laid his hand on my forearm. 'Listen,' he said. 'Are you blaming yourself?'
I nodded.
'Don't. I'm serious. Whatever happens with these Yanks, it isn't your fault. If I'd been in your shoes I might have done the same thing.'
'How do you mean, 'whatever happens'?' I said warily.
'I mean… I mean whatever happens I don't want you to blame yourself. It's important, Richard. If you really want someone to blame, blame Daffy.' He sighed deeply. 'Or me.'
'You?'
'Me.'
I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but he held up a hand. 'There's no point talking about it.'
'OK,' I said quietly.
'Look, we might not even have a problem. In a few weeks the Yanks will probably be flying off home and the map should go with them. Even if they stay in Thailand there's a good chance they won't bother trying to reach us. They seemed like a couple of air-heads, and the trip isn't easy.'
'I hope you're right,' I said hollowly, remembering how skilled they were at their surfer act.
'Hoping's about all we can do. That and wait…' He finished his beer. 'We've got to get the rice back to the boat tonight because I don't want to be carrying those sacks in broad daylight. Are you ready to go?'
'Yes.'
He stood up. 'Good. Then let's get to it.'
Around the back of the café was a thin passage between two beach huts, and under a tarpaulin were our rice sacks. We put them on the tarpaulin so we could drag them along the sand, and holding a corner each, set off on the long trek back to the boat.
Just after leaving Hat Rin, we had a fag break and ate a few of the boiled sweets from my bag of presents.
'I'm sorry if I flew off at you,' Jed said as I passed him the packet.
'It's all right.'
'No. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it.'
I shrugged. I felt like I did.
'I didn't ask you why your day was so bad.'
'Oh. It's nothing… It was just Hat Rin. The place, or the people… They gave me the creeps.'
'Me too. Fucked up, isn't it?'
'Fucked up… Yeah. It is.'
'Richard?'
'Yes?'
'When we get back to the camp, don't mention this thing with the Yanks.'
'But…'
'Sal and Bugs. I don't think they'll understand.'
I looked at him but he was busy trying to get the wrapper off one of the sweets.
'…If you think that's the right thing to do.'
'Yeah. I do.'
It took us another three hours to get back to the marker. The forked stick showed up clearly in the bright moonlight, and we left the sacks beside it. Then I went to check on the boat while Jed moved the sacks off the tarpaulin and spread it across the sand. It was pitch black under the bushes but I could feel the curved prow. That was enough for me. As long as we had our means of escape, I could relax. Jed was already asleep by the time I got back to the marker. I lay beside him and looked at the stars, remembering the way I'd looked at the stars with Françoise. Somewhere amongst them was a parallel world where I'd kept the map to myself, I thought, and wished it could have been this one.
Through Early Morning Fog I See
Mister Duck sat in his room on the Khao San Road. He'd pulled back one of the newspapers that covered the window and was peering down to the street. Behind him, strewn across his bed, were coloured pencils, obviously the ones he'd used to draw the map. The map was nowhere in sight so maybe he'd already tacked it to my door.