‘I think you are very lucky to have met us, Richard,’ Etienne laughed. ‘I think without us you could not reach this beach.’
‘Yes,’ Francoise said. ‘But also we are lucky to meet him.’
‘Oh, of course. Without your map we could not find the beach either.’
Francoise frowned, then smiled at me. ‘Etienne! We are lucky to meet him anyway.’
I smiled back, noticing as I did so that the bad mood I’d been carrying all morning had completely lifted. ‘We’re all lucky,’ I said happily.
Etienne nodded. ‘Yes. We are.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in our luckiness. Then I stood up, clapping my hands together. ‘Right. Why don’t we go for a long swim now? It could be a practice.’
‘It is a very good idea, Richard,’ Etienne replied, also standing. ‘Come on, Francoise.’
She shook her head and pouted. ‘I think I will stay in the sun. I shall watch you two strong men from here. I will see who can swim the furthest.’
Doubt flickered in my mind. I looked at her, trying to see if her words were as loaded as they appeared. She was watching Etienne as he made his way into the sea, giving nothing away.
‘That’s it, then,’ I thought. ‘Just wishful thinking.’
But I failed to convince myself. As I waded after Etienne, I couldn’t help wondering if Francoise’s eyes were now on my back. Just before the water became deep enough to swim I needed to know, and glanced behind me. She had moved up the beach to the dry sand and was lying on her front, facing the land.
Just wishful thinking after all.
? The Beach ?
13
Eden
Sunset was spectacular. Red sky gently faded to deep blue, where a few bright stars already shone, and orange light threw elastic shadows down the beach as people strolled back to their huts.
I was stoned. I’d been dozing on the sand with Francoise and Etienne, recovering from our epic swim, when Sammy and Zeph turned up with half an ounce of grass wrapped in newspaper. They’d spent the day at Lamai hunting for their lost room key and found it hanging on a piece of driftwood, stuck into the sand. They’d bought the grass to celebrate.
‘Someone must have put it there knowing we’d come looking,’ Zeph had said as he sat down beside us. ‘Isn’t that such a decent thing to do?’
‘Maybe it was a stupid thing to do,’ Francoise had replied. ‘Someone could have taken this key and robbed your room.’
‘Well, uh, yeah, I suppose.’ Then he’d looked at Francoise, obviously taking her in for the first time, and given his head a little shake. I think he was clearing a mental image that had just appeared. ‘No, definitely. You’re right.’
The sun had begun its rapid descent to the horizon as the grass began to take hold. Now we all sat, watching the colours in the sky as intently as if we were watching television.
‘Hey,’ said Sammy loudly, breaking us out of our reverie. ‘Has anyone ever noticed that if you look up at the sky you can start to see animals and faces in the clouds?’
Etienne looked round. ‘Have we ever noticed?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Sammy continued. ‘It’s amazing. Hey, there’s a little duck right above us, and that one looks like a man with a huge nose.’
‘Actually, I have noticed this since I was a small child.’
‘A small child?’
‘Yes. Certainly.’
Sammy whistled. ‘Shit. I’ve only just noticed it. Mind you, that’s mainly to do with where I grew up.’
‘Oh?’ said Etienne.
‘See, I grew up in Idaho.’
‘Ah…’ Etienne nodded. Then he looked confused. ‘Yes, Idaho. I have heard of Idaho, but…’
‘Well, you know about Idaho, huh? There’s no clouds in Idaho.’
‘No clouds?’
‘Sure. Chicago, the windy city. Idaho, the cloudless state. Some weird weather thing to do with atmospheric pressure, I don’t know.’
‘There are no clouds at all?’
‘Not one.’ Sammy sat up on the sand. ‘I can remember the first time I saw a cloud. It was in upstate New York, the summer of seventy-nine. I saw this vast fluffy thing in the sky, and I reached and tried to grab it…but it was too high.’ Sammy smiled sadly. ‘I turned to my Mom and said, ‘Why can’t I have the candy floss, Mommy? Why?’ Sammy choked and looked away. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just a stupid memory.’
Zeph leant over and patted him on the back. ‘Hey man,’ he murmured, just loud enough to hear. ‘It’s OK. Let it out. We’re all friends here.’
‘Yes,’ said Etienne. ‘We don’t mind. Of course, everybody has a sad memory.’
Sammy spun around, his face all screwed up. ‘You, Etienne? You have a sad memory too?’
‘Oh, yes. I used to have a little red bicycle, but it was stolen by some thieves.’
Sammy’s expression darkened. ‘The bicycle thieves? They stole your little red bike?’
‘Yes. I was seven.’
‘
There was a shocked silence. Then Sammy grabbed the Rizlas and started furiously rolling up, and Zeph changed the topic of conversation.
The outburst was probably a clever move. Etienne’s response had been so charming that it would have been cruel to reveal the truth. Sammy’s only way out was to follow the bluff to its natural conclusion. As far as I know, Etienne believed there were no clouds in Idaho to the day he died.
¦
By the time we’d smoked the joint, the sun had almost disappeared. Just the slightest curve of yellow shimmered over the sea. A slight breeze picked up, sending a few loose Rizlas skimming along the sand. With the breeze came the smell of cooking – lemon grass and fried shell-fish – from the restaurant behind us.
‘I’m hungry,’ I muttered.
‘Smells good, huh?’ said Zeph. ‘I could do with a big plate of chicken noodles.’
‘Or dog noodles,’ said Sammy. He turned to Francoise. ‘We had dog noodles in Chiang Mai. Tasted like chicken. All those things – dog, lizard, frog, snake. They always taste like chicken.’
‘How about rat?’ I asked.
‘Uh-huh, rat too. Distinctly chicken-like.’
Zeph picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers, trailing patterns between his legs. Then he coughed, almost in a formal way, as if he wanted everyone to pay attention. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Do you know about Kentucky Fried Rat?’
I frowned. It sounded like another wind-up, and I felt that if Etienne was going to fall for it in the same kind of way I might start crying. I still had a picture in my head of his concerned face as he explained about his little red bike.
‘No. What is it?’ I said warily.
‘It’s one of those stories that get around.’
‘Urban myths,’ said Sammy. ‘Someone got a small bone stuck in their throat. Then they got it analysed and it was a rat bone.’
‘Yeah, and the person it happened to was a friend’s aunt’s cousin. It never happened to the person you’re talking to.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I know.’
