The Beach (10 page)

Routines developed quickly.
I'd wake around seven, seven thirty, then head straight down to the beach with Étienne and Keaty. Usually Françoise wouldn't swim because it was too much hassle getting the salt out of her long hair every day, but sometimes she would. Then we'd go back to the camp and rinse off in the shower hut.
Breakfast was at eight. Every morning the kitchen crew would boil up a load of rice, and it was up to the individual to sort out anything else. Most had their rice plain, but a few made the effort to boil up some fish or vegetables. I never bothered. For the first three days we mixed in our Magi-Noodles for a bit of flavour, but when the Magi-Noodles ran out we settled for the rice.
After breakfast people would begin to disperse. Mornings were for working and everybody had their job to do. By nine the camp was always empty.
There were four main areas of work: fishing, gardening, cooking and carpentry.
Étienne, Françoise and I were on the fishing detail. Before we'd arrived there'd been two fishing groups, but we made it three. Gregorio and us made up one group, Moshe and the two Yugoslavian girls made up another, and the last group was a bunch of Swedish guys. They were very serious about their fishing and every day they'd swim through the cliff caves to the open sea. Sometimes they'd come back with fish as big as your leg and everybody would make a fuss over them.
Work-wise, I felt pretty lucky. If it hadn't been for Étienne and Françoise volunteering to go fishing on that first day, we wouldn't have met Gregorio, and I might have ended up on the gardening detail. Keaty was on the gardening detail and he used to complain about it all the time. He had to work over half an hour from the clearing, up by the waterfall. The head gardener was Jean, a farmer's son from south-western France who pronounced his name like he was clearing his throat, and he ran his garden with an iron fist. The problem was, once you'd taken on a job it was pretty hard to change. It wasn't like there were rules, but everybody worked in groups so if you changed jobs you had to leave one group and break into another.
If I hadn't been a fisher, I probably would have tried to get in with the carpenters. Kitchen duties didn't appeal at all. Aside from the hellish chore of cooking dinner for thirty people every day, the three cooks all carried a lingering odour of fish innards around with them. The head cook, whose nickname was Unhygienix, had his own private store of soap in his tent. He seemed to get through a bar a week, but it didn't do any good.
The carpenters were run by Bugs. Bugs was Sal's boyfriend, and he was a carpenter by trade. He'd been responsible for the longhouse and all the huts, and he'd had the idea of tying the branches together to make the canopy ceiling. From the way people treated him, it was obvious that Bugs was much respected. It was partly that everybody relied on the things he made, but it was also because he was Sal's boyfriend.
If there was a leader, it was Sal. When she talked, people listened. She spent her days wandering around the lagoon, checking on the different work details and making sure things were running smoothly. At first she devoted a lot of time to making sure we were settling in OK, and often joined us when we swam down to the boulders, but after the first week she seemed satisfied, and we rarely saw her during the work period.
The only person who didn't have a clear working detail was Jed. He spent his days alone and was usually the first person to leave in the mornings and the last person to come back. Keaty said that Jed spent a lot of time near the waterfall and above the cliffs. Every now and then he would disappear and spend the night somewhere on the island. When he turned up again he usually had fresh grass, obviously taken from the dope fields.
Around two thirty, people would start drifting back to camp. The kitchen crew and the fishers would always be first so the food could be prepared. Then the garden detail would arrive with their vegetables and fruit, and by three the clearing would be full again.
Breakfast and dinner were the only meals of the day. We didn't really need more. 'Dinner was at four o'clock and usually people went to bed about nine. There wasn't much to be done after dark, apart from get stoned. Night-time camp-fires weren't allowed because fires were too conspicuous to low planes, even through the canopy ceiling. There were a lot of low planes around, flying to and from the airstrip on Ko Samui.
Apart from those with tents, everybody slept in the longhouse. It took me a while to get used to sleeping with twenty-one other people, but soon I started enjoying it. There was a strong sense of closeness in the longhouse which Keaty and the others with tents missed out on. There was also the ritual. It didn't happen every night, but it happened often, and every time it made me smile.
The origin of the ritual was the Waltons TV series. At the end of each episode you'd see a shot of the Waltons' house and hear all of them saying good night to each other.
The way it worked in the longhouse was like this.
Just as people were drifting off, a sleepy voice from somewhere in the darkness would say, 'Night John-Boy.' Then there'd be a short pause while we waited for the cue to be picked up, and eventually you'd hear someone say ' 'Night, Frankie,' or Sal, or Gregorio, or Bugs, or anyone they felt like saying good night to. Then the named person would have to say good night to someone different, and it would go around the whole longhouse until everyone had been mentioned.
Anybody could start the game off and there was no order to the names called out. When there were only a few names left it got difficult remembering which people had been mentioned and which hadn't, but that was part of the game. If you screwed it up, then there'd be loud tuts and exaggerated sighs until you got it right.
Although the ritual was sort of taking the piss, in another way it wasn't. No one's
name was ever passed over and right from the first time we heard it Étienne, Françoise and I were included.
The nicest thing was when you heard your name but you couldn't recognize the voice. I always found it comforting that someone unexpected would think to choose me. I'd fall asleep wondering who it could have been, and who I'd choose the next time.

On the morning of my fourth Sunday, all the camp were down on the beach. Nobody worked on Sundays.
The tide was out so there was forty feet of sand between the tree-line and the sea. Sal had organized a huge game of football and just about everyone was taking part, but not me and Keaty. We were sitting out on one of the boulders, listening to the shouts of the players drifting over the water. Along with our enthusiasm for video games, an indifference to football was something we shared.
A flash of silver slipped past my feet. 'Gotcha,' I muttered, flicking an imaginary spear at the fish, and Keaty scowled.
'Easy life.'
'Fishing?'
'Fishing.'
I nodded. Fishing was easy. I'd had the idea that as a city-softened westerner I wouldn't be able to manage such an ancient skill, but actually it was as simple as anything. All you had to do was stand on a rock, wait until a fish swam by, then skewer it. The only trick was in snapping the wrist, the same as in throwing a Frisbee. That way it span in the water and didn't lose momentum.
Keaty ran a hand backwards over his head. He hadn't shaved it since I'd arrived, and now his scalp was covered in a fortnight's worth of stubble.
'I'll tell you what it is,' he said.
'Mmm?'
'It's the heat. Fishing you can cool off any time, but in the garden you just bake.'
'How about the waterfall?'
'Ten minutes away. You go there, swim, and by the time you get back you're hot again.'
'Have you talked to Sal?'
'Yesterday. She said I can transfer if I find someone to swap with, but who wants to work on the garden detail?'
'Jean does.'
'Yeah. Jean does.' Keaty sighed. 'Jean de fucking Florette.'
'Jean le Frogette,' I said, and he laughed.
A cheer erupted from the beach. Étienne appeared to have scored a goal. He was running around in circles with his hand in the air and Bugs, captain of the other side, was yelling at his goalkeeper. Up by the trees I could see Françoise. She was sitting with a small group of spectators, applauding.
I stood up. 'Feel like a swim?'
'Sure.'
'We could swim over to the corals. I haven't really checked them out yet. I've been meaning to.'
'Great, but let's get Greg's mask first. There's no point swimming to the corals without the mask.'
I glanced back to the beach. The game had started again. Bugs had the ball and was weaving down the sand, looking to make up the deficit, and Étienne was hot on his tail.
'You want to get it? I'll wait here.'
'OK.'
Keaty dived off the boulder. For a few strokes he stayed underwater, and I followed his shape along the seabed until he was lost from view. He finally resurfaced an impressive distance away.
'I'll get some grass too,' he called.
I gave him the thumbs up and he ducked back under again.
I turned away from the beach, towards the seaward cliffs. I was looking for a split in the rock-face that Gregorio had pointed out a few days before. According to him, the most spectacular of the coral gardens lay in the waters directly beneath it.
At first I was confused. I was sure I was looking in the right place.
Gregorio had indicated the split by making me follow a line of boulders that stretched across the lagoon like stepping-stones. The boulders were still there, but the fissure had vanished.
Then I found it. Gregorio had shown me the spot in late afternoon. The cliffs had been in full shadow, and the split had been dark. But now, caught in the low morning sun, the jagged edge of the fissure glowed white against the black granite.
'Like a negative,' I said out loud, smiling at my mistake.
Another cheer floated over from the football game. Bugs' team had pulled one back.

Under the weight of two grapefruit-sized stones, I drifted down to the seabed and sat, cross-legged, on the sand. Then I rested the stones on my lap so I wouldn't float back up again.
Around me were banks of coral, brightly coloured pagodas, melted and sprawling in the hot tropical waters. In the recesses of their fans, something recoiled at my presence. It was almost imperceptible - a slight ripple of light spreading across the colours. I gazed harder, trying to pinpoint the strange effect, but once the change had happened the corals looked no different to before.
A strange creature was lying in front of me. A name popped into my head — sea cucumber — but only because I'd heard that such things existed. It could have been a sea marrow for all I knew. The creature was just over a foot in length and about the thickness of my forearm, and at the end nearest to me it had a nest of tiny tentacles. Using a snapped finger from one of the fans, I gave it an exploratory poke. The cucumber didn't move or flinch so, emboldened, I touched it with my own finger. It was the softest thing I'd ever felt. Only the barest sensation of resistance was offered by the silky flesh, and I pulled back for fear of tearing its skin.
'Curiouser and curiouser,' I thought, smiling. Holding my breath was getting me high. From the blood humming in my ears and the mounting pressure in my lungs, I guessed I had less than twenty seconds of air remaining.
I looked up. Six or seven feet above me, perched on an overhanging rock-shelf, I could see Keaty's disembodied legs. He was swinging them gently like a kid in a high chair and had attracted the attention of a little blue fish. The fish was mainly interested in his ankles. Every time they swung near, it would dart forwards as if to take a bite, but stop abruptly an inch or so away. Then, as his ankles swung back, the fish would flick its fins and retreat, perhaps cursing itself for its lack of courage.
A cold trickle of water eased past the hollow of my temples. With my head pointed upwards, the trapped air was pulling the mask away from my face. I looked down quickly, pushing at the glass to re-establish the seal, but it was no use. Too much water had worked its way in. I rolled the stones off my lap and let myself float back to the surface.
On impulse, I nipped Keaty's ankle as I passed it by, using my bunched fingernails like a row of teeth.
'What did you do that for?'
I rubbed away the itch from where the mask had been gripping my face. Keaty was rubbing his ankle.
'There was this little fish,' I began, then started laughing.
'What little fish?'
'It wanted to bite you but didn't have the nerve.'
Keaty shook his head. 'I thought it was a shark.'
'There's sharks here?'
'Millions.' He jabbed a finger at the cliffs behind him, indicating the open sea, then shook his head again. 'You made me jump.'
'Sorry.'
I hauled myself out of the water and sat next to Keaty on the rock-shelf. 'It's amazing down there. It would be so good to have aqualungs or something. A minute isn't really long enough.'
'Or a hose-pipe,' Keaty said. He pulled a plastic film carton from his pocket. Inside were loose Rizlas and grass. 'I went to Ujung Kulon two years ago. You been there?'
'Charita.'
'Well, in Ujung Kulon there were some corals and these guys there used a hose-pipe. You could stay under for a while, but you couldn't really move around. Still...'
'I don't suppose we've got a hose-pipe here?'
'Nope.'
I waited while Keaty finished rolling the joint.
'...So you've done a lot of travelling.'
'Sure. Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Turkey, India and Nepal. Oh, also Pakistan. Sort of. I was in Karachi for three days on a stopover. You count that?'
'Uh-uh.'
'Me neither. How about you?'
I shrugged. 'I've never done any of the Americas stuff, or Africa. Just around Asia really. Europe too, I suppose. How about Europe? Does Europe count?'
'Not if you won't count Karachi.' He lit up. 'Got a favourite?'
I thought for a couple of moments. 'It's a toss-up between Indonesia and the Philippines.'
'And your worst?'
'Probably China. I had a lousy time in China. I went for five days without talking to one person except when I ordered food in restaurants. Terrible food too.'
Keaty laughed. 'My worst was Turkey. I was supposed to stay for two months but I left after two weeks.'
'And the best?'
Keaty looked around, inhaling deeply, then passed me the joint. 'Thailand. This place, I mean. It isn't really Thailand, considering there's no Thais, but... Yeah. This place.'
'This place is unique... How long have you been here?'
'Two years. Just over. I met Sal in Chiang Rai and we got friendly. Hiked around a bit. Then she told me about this place and took me along.'
I flicked the dead joint butt into the water. 'Tell me about Daffy. No one talks about him.'
'Yeah. People were shocked when they heard.' Keaty scratched at his stubble thoughtfully. 'I'm not a good person to ask. I barely knew the guy. He was a bit distant, to me anyway. I mean, I knew who he was, but we didn't talk much.'
'So who was he?'
'Are you kidding?'
'No. Like I said, nobody mentions him, so...'
Keaty frowned. 'You haven't seen the tree yet? The tree by the waterfall?'
'...I don't think so.'
'Shit! You don't know anything, do you, Rich? You've been here, what? A month?'
'Just over.'
'Man.' Keaty smiled, 'I'll take you to the tree tomorrow. Then you'll see.'
'How about now?'
'I want to swim — Especially now I'm stoned. And it's my turn with the mask.'
'I'd really like to...'
Keaty slipped into the water. 'Tomorrow. What's the hurry? You waited four weeks.' He snapped the strap tight over the back of his head and ducked under; end of discussion.
'OK,' I said to the flat water, allowing dope and beach life to cloud my curiosity. 'Tomorrow then.'
On my next turn with Gregorio's mask I looked out for any shifting colours in the corals, but the strange effect refused to repeat itself. The coral dwellers were still hidden in their pagoda homes. Either that, or my presence no longer scared them.