The Day Of The Wave (10 page)

Breathe, Isla. Just walk. It won't happen again
.

I look down. A tiny ghost crab runs in front of me, making me jump. I clutch my purse to my chest as my heart keeps hammering. From out of nowhere, water rushes up and over my foot. I shriek and freeze, readying myself for the onslaught, for the slam dunk and battering. It's happening again.

A hand on my arm makes me shriek again. 'Izzy! God, I'm so sorry, I should've come to get you!'

I open my eyes. Ben's right here in front of me. 'I was wondering where you were and then I realized maybe you didn't want to walk on your own, I'm sorry.'

The wave laps over my foot again and I stumble forwards. He catches me, put his hands to my waist. 'It's just high tide!' He's looking at me in such concern my cheeks heat up instantly. I turn around, start walking back the way I came. Idiot.

'Ben. I can't do this.'

'Yes you can. Please.' He catches me, stands in front of me. 'It's just high tide, it's no big deal, Izzy. Take your shoes off.'

'What?'

'Take your flip flops off, stand in the water.'

'I can't.'

'Yes you can. I'm right here.'

'It's too dark!'

He stops me, drills his eyes into mine. 'I'm
right
here.'

My eyes scan his tall frame in the moonlight. He's wearing a red fitted T-shirt and board shorts and he's motioning at my feet. I can't do it. This was a huge mistake, I'm making such an idiot of myself. I just want to be back in my room. 'I'm not even hungry,' I mumble, but Ben takes my hand now, pulls me back and holds it tight. 

'Izzy. Stand in the water.'

I swallow, look out at it washing in softly, then quickly, all the way along the beach, right up to where the restaurant light is. It's the only way. 'It's totally safe, I promise,' he says.

He's not letting me out of it. Slowly I do as he says, hitching up my long dress. Ben takes my flip flops. My bare feet sink into the warm, soft sand and the sensation makes me inhale sharply. I forgot what this feels like - this connection to the earth in the dark, this feeling that you're totally at the mercy of nature. It's good, but it's terrifying. I hate it... I think.

'We should've done this in the daylight,' Ben tells me as the water comes up again. I gasp in shock but this time I don't jump when it rushes over me. My feet sink deeper under the lapping surf, the grit tickling my toes. It's warm and soft and Ben's right beside me. My dream rushes back, the memories. 

'Don't let go,' I say to him now, sucking in a breath as the wind rushes through my hair and the water comes back for our feet.

'I won't,' he tells me, gripping my hand even tighter, rooting me to the spot. 'I won't let go.'

'This is the first time you've been on a beach since it happened?' I lead her down the sand now towards Pete's. Sonthi's there already with the French girls and I know Kalaya will be along soon enough too, but I don't let go of Izzy's hand.

'Yes,' she says. 'I couldn't do it.' Izzy looks up at me with the moonlight in her eyes. The wind picks up her hair and it hits me how beautiful she looks; this woman right beside me. She's wearing a long green dress that's swirling out around her as we walk along the sand. It's cut to show her cleavage and her tiny waist and for a second I can see her in her blue and white striped bikini. I see me, thinking she was the cutest girl I'd ever laid eyes on. She grew up. A lot. 

'So you haven't been anywhere with a beach since it happened? What about a vacation?' I say, trying not to sound like holding her hand like this after so long is having any effect on me at all. 

'I like city breaks,' she replies, eyeing the oncoming wave. 'My comfort zone is a very small place, put it that way.'

The ocean washes over our feet again. She pauses for a second, closes her eyes but she seems to be handling it better than she just was and I'm so glad I came for her. I don't know why I didn't offer to before. I guess Kalaya was distracting me. When she finished her shift I had to deal with a hundred questions about who
exactly
Izzy is and how long she's staying and I didn't know how to answer any of them.

'There you are!' Sonthi calls out as we reach Pete's and make our way over to the table. I drop Izzy's hand, finally, but not before he's noticed and raised an eyebrow. I shoot him a look that tells him to shut up and pull out a chair for her. 

'Sorry I'm late, I was sleeping. I'm Izzy,' she says. She smiles at everyone, kisses every cheek as it's offered. 

'Nice to meet you,' the French girls chorus. They're all dressed in bikini tops with strappy dresses. The blond, Claudette, who I know Sonthi's hooking up with is sitting with her hand on his knee already and there are coconuts half-filled with rum on the table between them, plus a bucket of a bright pink liquid. 

'So that's a bucket,' Izzy says, cocking an eyebrow at the small silver container with a handle, and four straws poking out of it.

'Want to try?' Sonthi asks. She declines. 

Pete's is directly on the sand - a small restaurant that sometimes hosts live music. It's our regular hang out for cheap, awesome food and drinks, plus the tourists like it.

'This is Emma, Genevieve and Claudette,' I tell Izzy. 'They just got their PADI Open Water certificates.'

'Congratulations,' Izzy tells them, folding her arms on the plastic table cloth, then straightening it out underneath her and aligning her cutlery. 'I used to want to learn how to dive.'

'These guys are such good teachers,' Genevieve gushes. 'Better than anyone we could have found in France.' 

'Please make sure you write that on TripAdvisor,' I say and she laughs, slapping my shoulder softly. Sonthi raises another eyebrow. I know she's flirting again. 

'How do you two know each other?' Emma asks.

I open my mouth to respond but there's a voice behind us. Kalaya. 'They met before the tsunami,' she answers for me, looping her arms around my shoulders from behind and kissing my cheek. She smells like shampoo and the perfume I bought her last time I was in Singapore on a visa run. She motions for me to scoot up in the sand and squeezes a chair in between mine and Izzy's, then puts her hand on my arm. She motions for Pete to come over with the menus. It's only now I realize there's another guy with her.

'This is my friend Justin,' Kalaya says, gesturing to the guy in red board shorts he pulls up another chair in the sand. Sonthi scoots over to make room. 'Justin, this is my boyfriend, Ben, and everyone else.'

'Hey,' I say, standing up and shaking his hand over the table. 'You signed up for some dives today, right?'

'That's right, yeah. Great to meet you.' He's Australian, probably from Sydney, or around those parts. You get good with accents pretty fast in a job like this. I watch as he introduces himself to everyone, making a point of double kissing the French girl's cheeks, then Izzy's. I smile to myself. He's not as tall as me but not exactly short, and he has a shaved head and a trace of a goatee he might be growing. I'd never be able to pull off a goatee. A lot of backpackers grow unbelievable hair on their travels, in all kinds of places. They like to talk about it a lot, too.

'You want coconut with rum?' Kalaya asks Izzy, but Izzy shakes her head.

'I'm OK, thanks.'

'I'll have one, yeah,' Justin says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering them round.

It's not unlike Kalaya to invite random people to things like this. Usually it's guys who get chatting to her during the day when they walk up and ask about diving. 

'You want a water or anything?' I ask Izzy. At my words, Kalaya's head swings round. Jesus.

Izzy clears her throat and I know she's probably feeling as awkward as I am, but this is no one's fault. It's not like we planned to find each other again, and it's not even like anything will happen now we're adults. But I can't help feeling a little guilty now for the memories I can't erase. 

'So, why did you come back here?' Kalaya asks her now. 

'I think it was just time I saw it all,' Izzy answers tactfully, studying her hands on the table. 'I've been avoiding coming back here for a long time.'

'It's not exactly the nicest thing to re-live,' I say quickly.

'Sonthi's says you were on the beach when it happened?' Genevieve says now, eyes wide as she takes a cigarette and lights it with a match. She and the others are all looking at her with a mixture of interest and a little trepidation and Izzy crosses and uncrosses her legs. I don't miss her discomfort growing stronger by the second. Her eyes dart to the ocean, then the beach, like she's contemplating which way to run. Kalaya's eyes are on me now, almost daring me to speak. My heart pangs. 

'I was on holiday here when...' Izzy pauses, 'when it happened.'

'Shit, that's screwed up,' Justin says, leaning back in his chair and fixing her an even more intense look. The girls all lean forwards with bated breath. It's always the same. Tourists love hearing these stories, even if they're horrified once we've told them. I feel my jaw start to pulse.

'Right, what's everyone eating?' I say, sliding round the plastic menu cards. 

'My family also died,' Sonthi says suddenly. My eyes shoot up to Izzy. 

'I'm so sorry,' she says, lining up the salt and pepper shakers with the napkin dispenser. 'I heard you lost a lot of people. More than me.'

'This is crazy, no?' Claudette cuts in, squeezing Sonthi's knee. 'You were all in the tsunami?'

'Not me,' Kalaya says. 'I was in Bangkok.'

'I think I'm going the pad Thai route, Pete makes a good one,' I say, just as another round of rum coconuts are delivered to the table. I take mine, take a big slug through the straw. Izzy shoots me a grateful look and I nod at her.

'How long have you been here in Khao Lak?' she asks Kalaya, sitting up straighter, putting her hands in her lap. 

'I came six months ago. I needed new job, I was sick of Bangkok and my ex boyfriend. He lives there,' she replies, reaching out a hand to run it though my hair as she talks. 'He was from Ireland. He was a bad boy, not like Ben.' 

Everyone laughs but I wince internally, taking her hand out of my hair and holding it instead. I've heard Kalaya talk about her Irish ex a number of times. He ended up cheating on her and dating her sister. Sonthi says it's why she's a little possessive. I say that's an understatement.

'So what do you do here, except dive?' Justin asks me. 'You live here, right?'

'I started the Khao Lak Survival Foundation, we opened a school, I say. 'I'm taking Izzy tomorrow if you want to come along, check it out with us?' 

'Why not? Sounds good, cheers,' he says. 'Wouldn't mind checking out the local scenery!'

'We have some great kids from Sonthi's village, they're really awesome.'

  I notice Izzy smiling as she studies her menu. I realize I didn't actually ask her if she wanted to see the school or not. I just assumed I would take her, and to the memorials. 

'What time are we leaving? So I don't sleep in again,' she asks with a half smile now, just as my phone buzzes. I pull it out. It's my mom. Izzy sees me hang up on her.

'I have a morning dive till nine thirty,' I tell her. 'I'll come for you after that.'

The conversation moves quickly onto diving and when the food arrives I eat, speaking only when I'm spoken to. Every time my eyes catch Izzy's, though, I can feel something brewing, coming on stronger by the second, a ball of knots in my stomach that isn't just made from my noodles. I can see she's a pro at avoiding what she doesn't want to talk about, just like I am. But there are some things I know we're going to have to say eventually.

I pick up my coffee, let the potent fluid work its morning magic as I scroll through the news on my iPad. I just sent off my cookbook article, finally. I couldn't even concentrate on it properly till now but I'm pretty sure Farzana, my editor, and Chinda herself will be pleased. I was very complimentary. Her food was great, but it's because of her I found Ben again. Of course I didn't write about that. I need to write about that somewhere else; I know I do.

I cast my eyes to the beach. It's stretched out ahead of the swimming pool in the Shady Palm's restaurant, which itself is surrounded by statues of Buddha and bright pink and red flowers. There's one other couple having breakfast in the idyllic setting. It all unsettles me, the more I think about it; the butterflies, the breeze, the sound of distant laughter. It's a lot like the setting where I last saw mom and dad, when I kissed my dad's cheek and ran off with no idea I'd never see them again. Not alive, anyway. I spoke to them this morning from my deck:
I miss you so much. Please stay with me while I do all this.

The beach here is definitely picturesque, strewn at random intervals with tall granite boulders, all against a backdrop of the pretty, green national park hillside. We're surrounded by national park. I remember a day tour we did out there once before, in Khao Sok. We paddled down a river in an inflatable canoe. It was me, mom, dad and a bunch of Swedish people who saw the whole thing through the lenses of their video cameras. 

My iPad makes a noise. It's Skype. My heart leaps. Colin. 

For a second I contemplate not picking up, but his face on his profile picture makes me swipe to connect before I can think any more. He's just worried about me.

'How are you?' he asks as soon as our faces are taking up the screen. 'Where are you now?'

His voice is so familiar. He's wearing his glasses, sitting on the sofa where I read that email. The picture of the London Eye I got from Covent Garden market is still frozen in time on the wall behind him.

'I'm alright, thanks,' I tell him. 'Still in Khao Lak.' 

'It looks sunny,' he says. 'It's pissing it down here.'

'What's new. Why aren't you at work?' 

'Because it's two a.m on Saturday,' he replies. 'I saw you come online, I was watching the match. Must be nice to be on holiday, no idea what day it is. So how is it being back there? Are you handling it?'

I shift my eyes to my scars, faced upwards at me on the table as I hold the iPad. The fact that I couldn't ever really talk to Colin about what happened made him feel like I shut him out. And he cheated on me. My fault initially, yes... but we were setting up a home together.