The Beach (34 page)

The atmosphere in the hospital tent was the kind where you feel uncomfortable if you cough or make a hurried movement. Contemplative, detached; I felt like I was in a temple. Even more so because I was praying.
'Die,' went the prayer. 'Make this breath the last one.'
But every time, Christo would breathe again. Despite all the odds, despite the achingly long gaps, his chest would suddenly inflate and deflate. He'd still be alive, and the waiting would start all over again.
For much of the time, I studied Jed. He looked strange because his hair and beard were completely slick, flattened down with blood and sweat. I could see the shape of his head in a way I never had before. It was more angular than I'd imagined. Smaller, and where his scalp showed between the wet curls, shockingly white.
He didn't look at me once, neither had he acknowledged my presence when I climbed in. His eyes were set on Christo's calm face, and weren't going to budge until they were good and ready. Christo's face, I noticed, was just about the only clean thing in the tent. Under his chin you could see the dark smear-marks where Jed had wiped him down, and by the time you reached his neck you couldn't see past the dirt to his skin.
Another thing that caught my attention was that a little bag -which had been sitting just to the right of Jed until yesterday - was now gone. Karl's bag. I'd known it was his because peeking out of its top flap had been the Nike swim-shorts he sometimes wore. Although the missing bag was my only evidence, and remains my only evidence, I felt sure that Karl must have visited Christo before he left. I liked that idea. Visiting his friend, taking his bag, stealing the boat. Cured all right.
Time passed much faster than I estimated. When I looked at my watch I was expecting it to read four thirty, but instead it read five ten. I'd been in there for a whole
hour.
Forty minutes; that's a long way out. But watching Christo was absorbing. It set my mind thinking about stuff like the afterlife, because there was something about the way Christo was dying that made an afterlife seem particularly unlikely. It's hard to explain what the something was. His eyes maybe, which were slightly open even though he was obviously unconscious. The two glittering slits made him look so dysfunctional. Just a machine that, for whatever reason, happened to be packing in.
When I saw my watch, I realized I had to go. The rest of the camp would be returning soon, so I decided that I had no choice but to break the temple atmosphere.
'Jed,' I said in a soothing, priestly manner. 'There's something we should talk about.'
'You're leaving,' he said bluntly.
'...Yes.'
'When?'
'Tonight... Tonight, when everyone's crashed out after Tet. Will you come?'
'If Christo is dead.'
'...And if he isn't?'
'I'll stay.'
I bit the inside of my lip. 'You understand that unless you come tonight, there'll be no way off the island.'
'Mmm.'
'You'll be stuck here with whatever's coming. And the problem isn't going to be more travellers turning up. Karl's taken the boat. If he contacts his family or Sten and Christo's families...'
'It isn't the Thai police that are coming.'
'...And when Sal finds out we're gone tomorrow, the shit's going to...'
'It's already hit.'
'...I won't be able to wait for you.'
'I don't expect you to.'
'I want you to come.'
'I know.'
'And do you know that it makes zero difference to Christo if you're here or not? Do you know that too? With the amount of oxygen he's taking in, most of his brain has already shut down.'
'He isn't dead until he stops breathing.'
'OK...' I thought hard for a couple of seconds. 'So what if we stop him breathing. We could cover up his mouth. It would only take five minutes.'
'No.'
'You don't have to do it. I'll do it for you. You could hold his hand or something. It would be a nice way for him to go. It would be very tranquil and...'
'Fuck it, Richard!' Jed snapped, spinning his head round and looking at me for the first time. But as soon as he did so, his expression softened. I was biting my lip again. I didn't like Jed shouting at me.
'Look,' he said. 'Christo should be dead by tonight, so I should be able to come with you.'
'But...'
'Now why don't you go? I don't think Sal would like it if you were in here.'
'...No, but...'
'You'll check on me before you leave.'
I sighed. Jed turned back to Christo. I stuck around for a minute or so, then backed out of the tent.
Outside, I saw Keaty scurrying off towards the Khyber Pass with an armful of something soggy and unrecognizable in his arms. When he came back I asked him what he was doing.
'I took the dope out of the cooking pots,' he explained, drying his sticky chest with a T-shirt. He smelt of lemon grass and his hands were shaking.
'What?'
'I had to. It kept floating to the surface. Unhygienix would have seen it immediately. But it was in there for an hour so...'
'Your shorts,' I said.
'Shorts?'
'They're covered in stew. Go and change them.'
His eyes flicked down. 'Shit!'
'Just go and change them. It's no big deal.'
'Change them. Right.'
Before he'd returned, the rest of the camp began pouring into the clearing. Singing, laughing, arm in arm. Tet was about to kick off.

Take a green coconut, still up in the tree, and cut a small incision in its base. Under the incision, hang a flask to catch the dripping milk. Then leave it for a few hours. When you come back, you'll find that the milk has fermented and that if you drink it you'll get pissed. A neat trick. It tastes OK; a bit sugary, but OK. I was surprised I'd never seen it done before.
Thanks to the gardeners, we all had coconut-shell cups filled with the moonshine beer. 'Down in one!' Bugs was shouting. 'Down the hatch!' And people had fizzy juice running over their chins and chests. Françoise was eyeing Keaty, and Étienne was eyeing me, and we had more running over our chins than anyone else.
Bugs finished his cup first and kicked it into the jungle like it was a football. It must have fucking hurt, like kicking a lump of wood. But the idea caught on and just about everyone had a crack, and soon the clearing was filled up with people hopping around, clutching a foot, giggling like crazy. 'Hopping mad,' I said to Keaty, but he didn't get the joke.
'Sal keeps staring at me,' he whispered. 'She
knows
something. Should I kick the coconut? What if I break my foot? Would you leave me behi...' He interrupted himself by dropping the shell and punting it. His face screwed up with the pain and he let out a yell louder than all the others. 'Did it,' he gasped. 'Is she still looking?' I shook my head. She never had been looking anyway.
When Jean began to produce a second round of drinks, I manoeuvred myself around to where Françoise and Étienne were standing. I partly did it to get away from Keaty, whose jumpiness didn't seem helped by my presence. I think it reminded him of what was going on.
Françoise was putting in a great performance. If she was feeling the tension, I'd never have guessed it. Externally, she seemed to be in the party spirit one hundred per cent. When I walked up she gave me a flamboyant hug and a kiss on each cheek, and loudly said, 'This is all so wonderful!'
'I mentally congratulated her. She was even taking the performance through to slightly slurring her words, and not overdoing it either. Getting it exactly right.
'Can I have a kiss too?' said Jesse, nudging one of the carpenters.
'No,' Françoise replied with a dizzy smile. 'You are too ugly.'
Jesse clasped one hand to his heart and the other to his forehead. 'I'm too ugly! I'm too ugly for a kiss!'
'That's right,' said Cassie. 'You are.' She gave him her beer. 'Here. You'd better drown your sorrows.'
'I think I should!' Tipping his head back, he drained the liquid in one slurp and tossed the empty vessel behind him. 'But you still love me, don't you, Caz?'
'Not when you call me Caz, Jez.'
'Caz!' he howled. 'Caz! Jez! Caz!' Then he scooped her up in his arms and began staggering off towards the longhouse.
A couple of minutes later Étienne was called over to help carry the food to the eating area, and Françoise and I were left alone. She said something to me, but I didn't catch it because I was concentrating on something else. By the kitchen hut I'd seen Unhygienix tasting some of the stew with a puzzled frown.
'You are not listening to me,' Françoise said.
Unhygienix shrugged and began organizing the cooking-pot carriers.
'You never listen to me any more. Before, if I was talking to you, you would always listen. But now you have no time to even talk to me.'
'Yeah... Has Keaty told you not to eat the stew?'
'Richard!'
I frowned. 'What?'
'You are not listening to me!'
'...Oh. Well, I'm sorry. I've got a lot on my mind.'
'Not me.'
'Huh?'
'I am not on your mind.'
'Uh... Of course you are.'
'I am not.' She poked me in the ribs. 'I think you do not love me any more.'
I looked at her in astonishment.' ...Are you serious?'
'Very serious,' she said petulantly
'But... I mean... Do we have to talk about this right now? I mean, of all times, does it have to be right now?'
'Yes. It must be now. Étienne is not here, and maybe soon I will never see you agai...'
'Françoise!' I hissed. 'Keep it down!'
'Maybe I should keep it down, but maybe I should not. In the dope field, when I would not be quiet, you pushed me to the ground and held me tightly.' She giggled. 'It was very exciting.'
With a quick look around, I linked my arm in her elbow and began propelling her away towards the edge of the clearing. Once we were out of sight of the others I turned her round, held her head between my hands, and looked carefully at her pupils. They were all over the place. 'Oh my God,' I said furiously. 'You're drunk.'
'Yes,' she admitted. 'I am. It was this potchentong.'
'Potchentong? What the fuck are you talking about?'
'Jean calls the drink potchentong. It is not the real potchentong, but...'
'How much have you had?'
'Three cups.'
'Three? When?'
'With the football. The game.'
'You
idiot!
'
'I had no choice! They were passing around the shell, and you had to drink it all. They were watching and clapping, so what could I do?'
'Christ! Did Étienne drink some too?'
'Yes. Three cups.'
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Or meant to. That shit never works. I stopped when I was on about four.
'Right,' I said. 'Come with me.'
'Where are we going?'
'Over here.'
Françoise gasped as I pulled her behind a tree.
'Open your mouth,' I instructed.
'Are you going to kiss me?'
The infuriating thing is I'm sure that if I had tried to kiss her, she'd have let me. She was that drunk. But I had to shake my head.
'No, Françoise,' I replied. 'Not exactly.'
She bit my fingers really fucking hard when I stuck them down her throat. And she struggled and squirmed like a snake. But I was holding her with a vice-grip around her neck, and once the fingers were in, there wasn't a lot she could do about it.
After she'd finished throwing up, she slapped me in the face, which I accepted. Then she said, 'I could have done that myself.'
I shrugged. 'I didn't have time for an argument. Are you feeling more sober now?'
She spat.' ...Yes.'
'Good. Now go and wash yourself down in the waterfall stream and then discreetly make your way back to the clearing. And don't touch a drop of potchentong.' I paused. 'Or the stew.'
When I returned to the party, Étienne had finished helping carry the food and was standing alone, probably looking for Françoise. I walked straight up to him. 'Hi,' I said. 'Are you drunk?'
He nodded unhappily. 'The potchentong... They made me drink it and...'
'I heard,' I said, and tutted with sympathy. 'Strong stuff, huh?'
'Very strong.'
'Well, no worries. Just come with me.'

The layout was simple. Concentric circles under the marquee, the first a ring of candles, the second our banana-leaf plates, the third our seated selves, and the fourth a final ring of candles. It looked spectacular and terrifying. Orange faces, flickering light, diffused through clouds of dope smoke. And such a level of noise. People weren't talking, they were shouting. Sometimes screaming. Nothing more than jokes or requests to pass the rice pot, but it sounded like screaming.
I'd made us all sit together. Keeping us together made it easier all round. We were able to get rid of our stew more easily and it kept Keaty and Françoise contained between me and Étienne. It also meant that our relative temperance was less likely to be noticed, something that was fast turning into a problem. Keaty had picked up on it first, a little under an hour after we'd started to eat.
'I told you they'd trip,' he said. With the racket as a backdrop, he didn't even have to whisper. 'You put way too much in.'
'You think they're actually tripping?'
'Maybe not seeing stuff, but...'
I looked over at Sal, who was directly opposite me in the circle. Strangely, despite the din, she looked like someone in an old silent movie. Sepia-toned, flickering, twisted lips with no discernible sounds coming out. Frozen lips. Arched eyebrows. She must have been laughing.
'...But yeah, they're tripping,' Keaty finished. 'Either that or I am.'
Unhygienix appeared behind us. 'More stew!' he shouted.
I raised a hand. 'So full! Can't eat more!'
'Yes! Eat more!' He reached over and ladled a huge dollop in front of me. It poured over the edges of my banana leaf like a lava flow, smothering rice grains, taking them with it. Little people in the lava, I thought, and suddenly felt like I was tripping too. I gave Unhygienix the thumbs up, and he continued on his rounds.
A half-hour later, around quarter to nine, I excused myself on the pretext of a piss. I did need a piss as it happened, but mainly I wanted to check up on Jed. With the way things were going, I couldn't see the manic level being sustained later than midnight, so I wanted to know if our problem was resolved yet.
I relieved myself outside the hospital tent. Bad form in normal circumstances, but civic responsibility wasn't high on my list of priorities any more. Then I stuck my head through the flaps. To my amazement, Jed was asleep. He was in the same spot he'd been in earlier that day, but keeled over on his side. He'd probably been awake all the previous night.
Even more amazing was that Christo was still alive, doing his pitiful inflate-deflate thing. So slight I'd be hard put to call it a genuine breath.
'Jed,' I said, and he didn't stir. I said it louder, again with no response. Next a huge cheer came from the marquee. It lasted a pretty long time, and when Jed still hadn't stirred I knew I had the golden opportunity.
I reached Christo's head by simply sliding around the left-hand side of the tent. Then, just as I'd suggested earlier, I pinched his nose and covered his mouth. There was no twitching, no resistance. A few minutes later I took my hands away, counted to one hundred and twenty and slid back to the cool outdoors. And that was it. It really was that simple.
As I returned across the clearing, clicking my fingers in time with my footsteps, I saw the reason for the cheering I'd heard. Both the Yugoslavian girls were in the central circle of candles, heads resting on each other's shoulder, slow dancing to the buzz of noise.