Private showers, a bedside fan, a nice restaurant that looked on to the sea. Our huts faced each other over a gravel path lined with flowers. It was très beau, Françoise said with a happy sigh, and I agreed.
The first thing I did after shutting the door behind me was to go to the bathroom mirror and examine my face. I hadn’t seen my reflection for a couple of days and wanted to check things were OK.
It was a bit of a shock. Being around lots of tanned skin I’d somehow assumed I was also tanned, but the ghost in the mirror corrected me. My whiteness was accentuated by my stubble, which, like my hair, is jet black. UV deprivation aside, I was in bad need of a shower. My T-shirt had the salty stiffness of material that has been sweated in, sun-dried, then sweated in again. I decided to head straight to the beach for a swim. I could kill two birds with one stone – soak up a few rays and get clean.
Chaweng was a travel-brochure photo. Hammocks slung in the shade of curving palm trees, sand too bright to look at, jet-skis tracing white patterns like jet-planes in a clear sky. I ran down to the surf, partly because the sand was so hot and partly because I always run into the sea. When the water began to drag on my legs I jumped up, and the momentum somersaulted me forwards. I landed on my back and sank to the bottom, exhaling. On the seabed I let myself rest, head tilted slightly forward to keep the air trapped in my nose, and listened to the soft clicks and rushes of underwater noise.
I’d been splashing around in the water for fifteen minutes or so when Étienne came down to join me. He also ran across the sand and somersaulted into the sea, but then leapt up with a yelp.
‘What’s up?’ I called.
Étienne shook his head, pushing backwards through the water away from where he’d landed. ‘This! This animal! This… fish!’
I began wading towards him. ‘What fish?’
‘I do not know the English – Aaah! Aaah! There are more! Aaah! Stinging!’
‘Oh,’ I said as I reached him. ‘Jellyfish! Great!’
I was pleased to see the pale shapes, floating in the water like drops of silvery oil. I loved their straightforward weirdness, the strange area they occupied between plant and animal life.
I learnt an interesting thing about jellyfish from a Filipino guy. He was one of the only people my age on an island where I’d once stayed, so we became pals. We spent many happy weeks together playing Frisbee on the beach, then diving into the South China Sea. He taught me that if you pick up jellyfish with the palm of your hand, you don’t get hurt – although then you had to be careful to scrub your hands, because if you rubbed your eyes or scratched your back the poison would lift off and sting like mad. We used to have jellyfish fights, hurling the tennis-ball-sized globs at each other. On a calm day you could skim them over the sea like flat pebbles, although if you chucked them too hard they tended to explode. He also told me that you can eat them raw, like sushi. He was right. Literally speaking, you can, as long as you don’t mind a few days of stomach cramps and vomiting.
I looked at the jellyfish around us. They looked the same as the ones in the Philippines so I decided it was worth the risk of a sting, thinking how worldly and impressive it would seem to Étienne. The gamble paid off. His eyes opened wide as I plucked one of the quivering blobs from the sea.
‘Mon Dieu>!’ he exclaimed.
I smiled. I didn’t realize French people actually said ‘Mon Dieu’. I always thought it was the same thing as English people supposedly saying ‘what’ at the end of every sentence.
‘It is not hurting, Richard?’
‘Nope. It’s about how you hold it, like stinging nettles. You try.’
I held out the jellyfish.
‘No, I do not want to.’
‘It’s fine. Go on.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, sure. Hold your hands like mine.’
I slid the jellyfish into his cupped hands.
‘Oooh,’ he said, a big grin spreading over his face.
‘But you can only touch it with your palms. If you touch it anywhere else it’ll sting.’
‘Only the palm? Why is that?’
I shrugged. ‘Don’t know. That’s the rule.’
‘I think maybe the skin is more thick there.’
‘Maybe.’ I picked another one out of the water. ‘They’re weird, aren’t they? Look, you can see right through them. They don’t have any brains.’
Étienne nodded enthusiastically.
We peered at our jellyfish in silence for a few moments, then I noticed Françoise. She was on the beach, walking towards the water in a one-piece white swimsuit. She saw us and waved. As her arm lifted her swimsuit drew tightly over her chest and shadows from the one o’clock sun defined her breasts, the dip under the ribcage, a groove of muscle down her stomach.
I glanced at Étienne. He was still examining his jellyfish, pulling its tentacles outwards from the bell so it sat on his palm like a glass flower. Perhaps familiarity had blunted him to Françoise’s beauty.
When she reached us she was unimpressed by our catch. ‘I do not like them,’ she said curtly. ‘Will you come for a swim?’
I pointed at the chest-deep water, shoulder-deep for Françoise. ‘We are swimming, aren’t we?’
‘No,’ said Étienne, finally looking up. ‘She means a swim.’ He gestured to the open sea. ‘Out there.’
We played a game as we swam out. Every thirty feet we would each dive to the bottom and return with a handful of sand.
I found the game strangely unpleasant. A metre underwater the warmth of the tropical sea would stop, and it would turn cold, so abruptly that by treading water one could pinpoint the dividing line. Diving down, the chill would start at the fingertips then swiftly envelop the length of the body.
The further we swam, the blacker and finer the sand became. Soon the water at the bottom became too dark for me to see anything, and I could only blindly kick out with my legs, arms outstretched, until my hands sank into the silt.
I began dreading the cold area. I would hurry to catch my fistful, pushing up hard from the seabed though my lungs were still full of air. In the times I waited at the surface, while Étienne or Françoise swam down, I would keep my legs bunched up beneath me, using my arms to stay afloat.
‘How far out do we go?’ I said when the sunbathers on the beach behind us had turned into ants.
Étienne smiled. ‘You would like to go back now? Are you tired? We can go back.’
Françoise held up her hand clear of the water and unclenched her fingers. A lump of sand rolled out and dropped into the sea, where it sank, leaving a cloudy trail behind.
‘You are tired, Richard?’ she said, eyebrows arched.
‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘Let’s swim further.’
Suckered
At five that afternoon the temperature cooled, the sky turned black, and it rained. Unexpectedly, loudly – heavy droplets pouring down, cratering and re-cratering the beach. I sat on the small porch outside my hut and watched a miniature Sea of Tranquillity form in the sand. Across the way Étienne appeared briefly, snatching the swimming shorts he’d left out there to dry. He called something to me but it was lost in a roll of thunder, then he ducked back inside.
I had a tiny lizard on my hand. It was about three inches long, with enormous eyes and translucent skin. The lizard had been sitting on my cigarette packet for ten minutes, and when I’d got bored with watching it, waiting for a tongue to lash out and lasso a fly, I’d reached out and picked it up. Instead of wriggling away as I’d expected, the lizard had casually rearranged itself on my hand. Surprised by its audacity, I let it sit there – even though it meant keeping my hand in an unnatural position, palm facing upwards, which made my arm ache.
My attention was distracted by two guys running up the beach, whooping and shouting as they came. As they reached my hut they turned off the beach and leapt athletically on to the next porch along from mine.
‘Man!’ whooped one of them, white-blond with a goatee beard.
‘That’s some fuckin’ storm!’ replied the other, yellow-blond and clean-shaven. ‘Whoop!’
‘Americans,’ I whispered to the lizard.
They rattled at their door, then ran back into the rain towards the beach restaurant – weaving around, trying to dodge the rain. A couple of minutes later they came speeding back. Again they rattled at their door – then white-blond saw me, apparently for the first time. ‘Lost our fuckin’ key!’ he said, and jabbed a thumb towards the restaurant. ‘They lost theirs too! Can’t get in!’
‘Stuck out here!’ said yellow-blond. ‘In the rain!’
I nodded. ‘Bad luck. Where did you lose it?’
White-blond shrugged. ‘Miles down the fuckin’ beach, man! Miles and miles!’ Then he walked up to the wooden guard-rail that separated our two porches and peered over. ‘What you got in your hand there?’ he asked.
I held up the lizard.
‘Wow! Is it, like, dead?’
‘Nope.’
‘Excellent! Hey, can I come over? You know, meet the neighbours!’
‘Sure.’
‘You want to smoke a joint?’
‘Sure.’
‘Excellent!’
The two of them vaulted over the guard-rail and introduced themselves. White-blond was Sammy, yellow-blond was Zeph.
‘Zeph’s a strange name, right?’ said Zeph as he shook my left hand, not wanting to disturb the lizard. ‘Can you guess what it’s short for?’
‘Zephaniah,’ I answered confidently.
‘Wrong, dude! It isn’t short for anything! I was christened Zeph, and everyone thinks it’s short for Zephaniah, but it isn’t! Cool, huh?’
‘Definitely.’
Sammy started rolling up, pulling the dope and papers out of a waterproof plastic bag in his pocket. ‘You’re English, huh?’ he said, as he flattened out a Rizla with his fingers. ‘English people always put tobacco in joints. You see, we never do. Are you addicted to smoking?’
‘Afraid so,’ I replied.
‘I’m not. But if I put tobacco in joints I would be. I smoke all day, like that song. How’s that song go, Zeph?’
Zeph started singing a lyric that said, ‘Don’t bogart that joint, my friend,’ but Sammy cut him off.
‘No, dude. The other one.’
‘What, “I smoke two joints in the morning”? That one?’
‘Yeah.’
Zeph cleared his throat. ‘Uh, it goes, “I smoke two joints in the morning, and I smoke two joints at night, and I smoke two joints in the afternoon, and then I feel all right”… And then it goes, “I smoke two joints in times of peace, and two in times of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, then I smoke two more.” I can’t remember the rest.’ He shook his head.
‘No matter, dude,’ said Sammy. ‘You get the idea, Ricardo? I smoke a lot.’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Sammy had finished rolling the joint while Zeph had been singing. He lit it up and passed it straight to me. ‘That’s another thing about English dudes,’ he wheezed, smoke coming out of his mouth in short bursts. ‘You hang on to the joint for an age. Us Americans take a toke or two and pass it on.’
‘It’s true,’ I replied, sucking in.
I was going to apologize for the poor manners of my countrymen but I collapsed into a coughing fit.
‘Rickster!’ said Zeph, patting me on the back. ‘You gotta cough to get off.’
A couple of seconds later a blistering bolt of lightning crackled over the sea. After it was gone, Sammy said in an awestruck voice, ‘Most totally excellent, dude!’ Zeph quickly followed it up with, ‘Like, utterly outrageous, compadre!’
I opened my mouth, then hesitated. ‘Excellent, dude,’ I muttered thoughtfully.
‘Most excellent,’ Sammy repeated.
I groaned.
‘A problem, Ricardo?’
‘You’re winding me up.’
Sammy and Zeph looked at each other, then at me.
‘Winding you up?’
‘Having me on.’
Sammy frowned. ‘Speak in English, my man.’
‘This… Keanu Reeves thing. It’s a joke, right? You don’t really talk like that… do you?’
There was a brief silence, then Zeph swore. ‘We’re rumbled, Sammy.’
‘Yeah,’ Sammy replied. ‘We overplayed our hand.’
They were Harvard students. Sammy was studying law, Zeph was studying Afro-American literature. Their surf act was a reaction to the condescending Europeans they kept meeting in Asia. ‘It’s a protest against bigotry,’ Zeph explained, pulling knots out of his tangled blond locks. ‘Europeans think all Americans are stupid, so we act stupid to confirm your prejudices. Then we reveal ourselves as intelligent, and by doing so, subvert the prejudice more effectively than we would with an immediate barrage of intellect – which only causes confusion and, ultimately, resentment.’
‘Really?’ I said, genuinely impressed. ‘That’s so elaborate.’
Zeph laughed. ‘No, not really. We just do it for fun.’
They had other acts they liked to do. Zeph’s favourite was the Surf Dude, but Sammy had another – he called it the Nigger Lover. As its name implies, it was a bit more risqué than the Surf Dude.
‘One time I got punched doing the Nigger Lover,’ Sammy said, as he began to roll another joint. ‘Knocked flat on my fuckin’ back.’
I wasn’t at all surprised. The act involved Sammy starting violent arguments with total strangers, insisting that because there’s a country in Africa called Niger, all people from Niger were niggers – regardless of whether they were black or white.
‘Aren’t they called Nigerians?’ I asked, bristling slightly, despite knowing I was being suckered.
Sammy shook his head. ‘That’s what everyone says, but I don’t think so. Think about it. Nigeria is right below Niger. They border each other, so if they were both called Nigerians it would cause chaos.’
‘Well, I still doubt they’re called niggers.’
‘Oh sure. Me too. I only say it to make a point… Fuck knows what the point is, but…’ He drew on the joint and passed it on. ‘It’s like my grandad taught me. He was a colonel in the US Marines. Sammy, he’d say, the ends always justify the means. And you know what, Richard? He was right.’
I was about to disagree, but I realized he was winding me up again. Instead I replied, ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.’
Sammy smiled and turned to look at the sea.
‘That’s the boy,’ I thought I heard him say.
Lightning silhouetted the line of palm trees on the beach into a line of claws with pencil arms. The lizard scuttled out of my hand, startled by the flash.
‘That’s the kid.’
I frowned. ‘Sorry? What was that?’
He turned back, also frowning, but with the smile still not faded from his lips. ‘What was what?’
‘Didn’t you just say something?’
‘Nope.’
I looked at Zeph. ‘Didn’t you hear him say something?’
Zeph shrugged. ‘I was watching the lightning.’
‘Oh.’
Just the dope talking, I guessed.
The rain continued as night fell. Étienne and Françoise stayed in their hut, and Zeph, Sammy and I stayed on the porch until we were too stoned to do anything but sit in silence, passing the odd comment between us if there was an impressive roll of thunder.
An hour or two after dark a tiny Thai woman came over to our porch from the restaurant, almost hidden under a giant beach parasol. She looked at the dope paraphernalia strewn about us with a wan smile, then handed Zeph a spare key to their room. I took that as my cue to crawl into bed. As I said good night, Sammy croaked, ‘Hey, nice meeting you. Catch you tomorrow, dude.’
He seemed to say it without a trace of irony. I couldn’t work out whether it was a continuation of his surfer joke or whether the grass had regressed
his Harvard mind. It seemed too complicated to ask, so I said, ‘Sure,’ and shut the door behind me.
At around three in the morning I woke up for a short while, dry-mouthed, still high – and listened. I could hear cicadas, and waves sucking down the beach. The storm had blown itself out.
Spaced Invaders
The next morning the sky was still clouded over. As I walked out on to the porch, scattered with rain-soaked joint butts, I had the bizarre sensation that I was back in England. There was a slight chill in the air and I could smell wet earth and leaves. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I padded over the cool sand to Étienne and Françoise’s hut. There was no answer, so I tried the restaurant and found them eating breakfast. I ordered a mango salad, thinking an exotic taste might compensate for the feeling of being at home, and sat down with them.
‘Who did you meet last night?’ said Étienne, as I pulled up a chair. ‘We saw you talking outside your room.’
‘We watched you from our window,’ Françoise added.
I pulled out a cigarette to kill time before breakfast arrived. ‘I met a couple of Americans. Zeph and Sammy.’
Françoise nodded. ‘Did you tell them about our beach?’
‘No.’ I lit up. ‘I didn’t.’
‘You shouldn’t tell people about our beach.’
‘I didn’t tell them.’
‘It should be a secret.’
I exhaled strongly. ‘And that’s why I didn’t tell them, Françoise.’
Étienne interrupted. ‘She was worried you might have…’ The sentence trailed off into a nervous smile.
‘It didn’t even cross my mind,’ I replied irritably, and stubbed out my cigarette hard.
It tasted like shit.
When the mango salad arrived I made an effort to relax. I told them about how the Americans had fooled me with their surfer act last night. Françoise thought the story was extremely funny. Her laughter partially defused the tension and we began making plans for the day ahead.
We decided that we had to hire a boat. The normal tour agencies wouldn’t do because they’d be too organized, and we doubted we’d be able to slip away from their supervision. Instead we would need to find a fisherman who was unaware of or unconcerned about the rules on tourists in the marine park.