in that situation.’
‘No need for that, Sal,’ I replied immediately. Even in the context of a lie – and by now I was sure she was lying – I felt extremely uncomfortable having her apologize to me. ‘I understand.’
‘But I do not!’ said Etienne desperately. ‘Please! Please, everybody
This time it was Francoise who cut him off, by doing nothing more than walking away. His voice failed him as he watched her march across the clearing. Then he started after her, still not able to speak, holding his arms ahead of him, paralysed in mid-plea.
? The Beach ?
88
Up-Ended
Almost as soon as Etienne and Francoise walked off, the rest of us began to wander across the clearing. There was no further discussion about Karl. As far as the others were concerned, I think they were all aware that the calm since Sten’s funeral was in jeopardy, and a huge exercise in denial was underway. Instant, informal, an intuitive consensus so that talking about anything remotely contentious was out of bounds. No problem for me. It meant that no one asked me to elaborate on Karl or brought up the topic of the gunshots. The only downside was having to labour through a few contrived conversations, which seemed a fair trade-off.
The strangest of these exchanges was with Jean, not least because he almost never spoke to me. He came over with a shy smile and asked the kind of stupid question that can only come from uneasiness. ‘You are working, Richard?’ he said.
At the time I was having a smoke outside the kitchen hut, trying to reconstruct my splintered nerves. ‘No, Jean,’ I managed to reply, relatively steadily. ‘Not at this exact moment. I’m smoking a cigarette.’
‘Ah.’
‘Would you like one?’
‘Oh no!’ he said hurriedly, looking quite alarmed. ‘I do not want to take your cigarette.’
‘Go ahead. Keaty’s bringing me some back from Hat Rin.’
‘No, no. I can smoke grass.’
‘…OK.’ I returned his smile, willing him to fuck off with all my heart.
But he didn’t. He scratched his head and shuffled his feet a bit. I had the impression that if he’d owned a cap he’d have been holding it in his hands. ‘You know, Richard, I was thinking.’
‘Mmm?’
‘Perhaps you would like to see the garden one day. Sometimes you would come to see Keaty, but now it has changed. After Keaty was fishing, I made the garden even larger. Now it has seven areas.’
‘Seven?’ I said tightly. ‘Great.’
‘So one day you will come to see it?’
‘It’s a date.’
‘A date! Yes!’ He let out a roar of laughter, so theatrical that for a few seconds I thought he was taking the piss. ‘A date! Then we will see a film!’
I nodded.
‘A date,’ he repeated. ‘See you on our date, Richard!’
‘See you then,’ I replied, and mercifully he began to back away.
¦
I avoided visiting Jed until darkness was beginning to set in. I didn’t want to be seen entering the hospital tent. I knew that this would be a tacit acknowledgement of Christo’s existence – which, under our consensus, was perhaps the most important of the Things To Ignore.
If possible, conditions were even worse inside the tent than they had been before. Stench-wise it was the same deal, but the trapped heat seemed more intense and there were puddles of dried and drying black liquid everywhere. Blood from Christo’s stomach, soaking in the sheets, collecting in the folds of the canvas floor, and smeared across Jed’s arms and chest.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, feeling sweat begin to prickle my back. ‘What the fuck’s been going on in here?’
Jed turned towards me. He was lit from below by his up-ended Maglite. It made the stray hairs of his beard glow like light-bulb filaments and hid his eyes in absolute darkness. ‘Do you have good news for me?’ he murmured. ‘I’m tired of bad news now. I only want to hear good news.’
I paused, squinting at the shadows in his eye-sockets, looking to see some form inside them. Something about his manner was threatening and his demonic glow made me wonder if I was having a hallucination. So much so that I felt I should confirm his realness if I was going to stick around. Eventually I reached for the Maglite and shone it directly at his face. His hand flicked up to shield the glare, but I saw enough flesh to reassure me.
I rested the torch back on the floor. ‘I’ve got news. Zeph and Sammy are dead.’
‘Dead,’ Jed said without emotion.
‘Shot by the dope guards.’
‘You saw it?’
‘No.’
He cocked his head to the side. ‘Disappointed?’
‘No. I saw them get beaten and…’
‘That was enough for you.’
‘…It made me feel sick,’ I finished. ‘I didn’t expect it to, but it did.’
‘Oh.’ The bright filaments of Jed’s beard twitched as some invisible expression passed across his features.
‘…Aren’t you pleased? Not pleased, I mean relieved…In a way.’
‘I’m not relieved at all.’
‘…You aren’t?’
‘No.’
‘But it means the beach is safe. Tet and morale…and our secrecy…’
‘I don’t care about the beach any more, Richard.’
‘You…You don’t care about the beach?’
‘Would you like to hear my news?’
I shifted my weight to disguise my unease. ‘…OK.’
‘Today’s news is that there isn’t any.’
‘…No visitors.’
‘That’s right, Richard. No visitors. Again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t seen a single soul, except his and maybe mine…Can’t stop thinking about why that might be…Why do you think it is, Richard? Me and Christo, waiting here all day long, with no visitors…’
‘Jed…We’ve been over this before.’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘…No.’
‘So we can go over it again.’
‘…OK. It’s just like you said, people are trying to get back to normal. They don’t want to be reminded.’
‘And it would be the same if it was Sal in here.’
‘It might be different if it was Sal. She is the boss. But I don’t think…’
‘What if it was you?’ he interrupted.
‘In here?’
‘In here dying. What if it was you?’
‘Some people would come, I guess. Francoise and Etienne. Keaty…’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You’d come.’ I laughed weakly. ‘I hope.’
Jed let the laughter hang in the air, making it sound unpleasant and alien. Then he shook his head. ‘No,
