The Beach

by Alex Garland

  Jed was already asleep by the time I got back to the marker. I lay beside him and looked at the stars, remembering the way I’d looked at the stars with Françoise. Somewhere amongst them was a parallel world where I’d kept the map to myself, I thought, and wished it could have been this one.

  Through Early Morning Fog I See

  Mister Duck sat in his room on the Khao San Road. He’d pulled back one of the newspapers that covered the window and was peering down to the street. Behind him, strewn across his bed, were coloured pencils, obviously the ones he’d used to draw the map. The map was nowhere in sight so maybe he’d already tacked it to my door.

  I saw that his shoulders were shaking.

  ‘Mister Duck?’ I said cautiously.

  He turned, scanned the room with a puzzled frown, then spotted me through the strip of mosquito netting.

  ‘Rich… Hi.’

  ‘Hi. Are you all right?’

  ‘No.’ A tear rolled down his grubby cheek. ‘I’m going to kill myself pretty soon. I’m feeling really bad.’

  ‘… I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?’

  He sighed. ‘Thank you, Rich. You’re a good friend, but it’s too late now. I’ve been in a Bangkok morgue for the last eleven weeks.’

  ‘There’s no one to collect you?’

  ‘No one. The Thai police contacted the British Embassy. They found my parents in Glasgow, but they didn’t want to come out to sign the release papers. They don’t care about me.’ Another tear trickled out. ‘Their only son.’

  ‘But that’s awful.’

  ‘And I’m going to be incinerated in another four weeks if no one signs my release papers. The Embassy won’t cover the cost of returning my body.’

  ‘You… wanted to be buried.’

  ‘I don’t mind being incinerated, but if my parents won’t come to collect me then I don’t want to be sent. I’d rather have my ashes left out here.’ Mister Duck’s voice began to crack. ‘A small ceremony, nothing fancy, and my ashes scattered into the South China Seas.’ Then he collapsed into uncontrollable sobbing.

  I pressed my face and hands against the netting. I wished I were in the room with him. ‘Hey, come on Mister Duck. It isn’t so bad.’

  He shook his head angrily, and through his sobbing I noticed he’d started to sing the theme song from M*A*S*H.

  I waited until he’d finished, not knowing where to look, then said, ‘You’ve got a good voice,’ mainly because I didn’t know what else to say.

  He shrugged, wiping his face with his filthy T-shirt. His face ended up dirtier than it had been before. ‘It’s a small voice but it can carry a tune.’

  ‘No, Mister Duck. It’s a good voice… I always liked M*A*S*H.’

  He appeared to brighten up slightly. ‘So did I. The helicopters at the beginning.’

  ‘The helicopters were great.’

  ‘It was about Vietnam. Did you know that, Rich?’

  ‘Korea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Vietnam. Korea was the excuse.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Mister Duck turned back to peek between the newspapers again. He didn’t seem like he was about to speak, so I asked him what he was looking at to keep the conversation going.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied softly. ‘A tuk-tuk driver asleep in his cab… A stray dog sifting through litter… You take these things for granted when you’re alive, Rich, but when they’re the last things you’re ever going to see…’ His voice began to quaver again and he bunched up his fists. ‘… It’s time I got this over with.’

  ‘… Killing yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Then he said it again, more firmly. ‘Yes.’

  He walked briskly over to the bed, sat down, and pulled a knife from under the pillow.

  ‘Don’t, Mister Duck! Don’t do it!’

  ‘My mind’s made up.’

  ‘There’s time to change your mind!’

  ‘I won’t turn back now.’

  ‘Mister Duck!’ I cried out feebly.

  Too late. He’d already started to cut.

  I didn’t watch him die because I thought it would be disrespectful, but I checked on him five minutes later to see how he was getting on. He was still alive, jerking around on the sheets and spraying the walls. I waited another fifteen minutes before checking again, wanting to be sure. This time he was still, lying in the position I’d first found him. His torso was twisted so that his legs were off the edge of the bed – a detail I hadn’t noticed previously. Maybe he’d tried to stand up just before he’d died.

  ‘I’ll sort your ashes out, Mister Duck,’ I whispered through the netting. ‘You don’t have to worry about that.’

  Messed Up

  I woke up at the first glimmer of dawn. The sun was still under the horizon and the beach was lit with a strange blue light, both dark and bright at the same time. It was very beautiful and calm. Even the waves seemed to be breaking more quietly than usual.

  I didn’t wake Jed because I like being awake when other people are asleep. It makes me feel like pottering around, fixing breakfast if there’s anything to be fixed, and in this case, wandering aimlessly up the shore. While I walked I looked out for pretty shells. The necklace that Bugs had made me was OK, but many of the shells were a bit drab. I got the feeling that he hadn’t been too bothered to make them nice. Even Françoise’s necklace, which was the best out of the three, wasn’t as good as most of the others in the camp. It didn’t take long before I’d worked up a collection and was having to make hard choices about which shells to discard. The prettiest I found was flecked with blue, red and green – the back of a tiny crab. I decided that this would make the centrepiece of my new necklace, and looked forward to restringing it when I got home.

  I found the couple lying fast asleep on the grass verge, about two hundred metres further on from where we’d hidden the boat. It was the same couple that Jed and I had passed yesterday. My first instinct was to turn back, but curiosity stopped me. They’d chosen an oddly remote beach hut to stay in, miles from Hat Rin, and I was intrigued to see what kind of people they were. I pocketed my shells and padded across the sand towards them.

  Now I had a chance to see the couple from close up, they made an ugly sight. The girl had nasty sores around her mouth and was covered in fat black mosquitoes. At least thirty or forty were clustered on her legs and arms, and when I waved my hand over them they didn’t budge an inch. There were no mosquitoes on the guy. ‘No surprise,’ I thought, because he wouldn’t have made much of a meal. Judging by his height I reckoned he should have been eleven stone, but he couldn’t have weighed more than eight. His body was like an anatomical diagram. Every bone was clearly visible, as was every pitiful muscle. Beside him was a pill bottle, marked with the address of some dubious pharmacy in Surat Thani. I checked inside but it was empty.

  I’d been studying the guy for a while before I noticed that his eyes were slightly open. Just little slits, easy to miss at first glance. I waited to see him blink. He didn’t, or didn’t seem to, so I waited to see him breathe. He didn’t do that either. Then I bent down and touched his chest. He was warm enough, but the air was pretty warm too so that didn’t mean anything. I pressed my hand down harder. My fingers sank deeply between his ribs and the skin moved slackly against the bone. No pulse. I started counting, carefully marking the seconds with elephants, and by the time I reached sixty I knew he was dead.

  I frowned and looked around me. Apart from the silhouette of Jed and the rice sacks, the beach was completely deserted. Then I looked back at the girl. I knew she was alive because of the mosquitoes, and anyway, her chest was rising and falling.

  This unsettled me. I wasn’t bothered about the guy because he’d come to Thailand and messed up, so that was his look-out. But the girl was another matter entirely. As soon as her opiate slumber wore off she’d wake up to an empty beach and a corpse. I thought that would be a terrible thing to happen and, seeing as I’d been the one to find her, I felt I had some respo
nsibility for her well-being. I lit up a cigarette and wondered how I might help.

  Waking the girl up was out of the question. Even if I managed to bring her round, she’d only freak out. Then the authorities on Ko Pha-Ngan would get involved and it would be a disaster. Another option was to wake Jed up and ask his advice, but I decided against it. I knew what he’d say. He’d say it was none of our business and we should leave the couple as we found them, and I already knew I didn’t want to do that.

  Eventually I hit on a good idea. I would drag the guy’s body away to the bushes and hide it. Then, when she woke up, she’d just think he’d gone for a walk. After a day or so she’d realize he was missing and might worry about what had happened to him, but at least she wouldn’t know he was dead. By that time he would probably have been eaten by ants and beetles, and no one but me would be any the wiser.

  I busied myself with the task at hand, keeping half an eye on my watch. Jed would be awake soon and then it would be time to leave.

  ‘Jed!’ I said softly.

  He stirred and waved a hand over his face, like he was brushing away a fly.

  ‘Jed! Wake up!’

  ‘What?’ he mumbled.

  ‘We should go. It’s getting light.’

  He sat up and looked up at the sky. The sun was fully above the horizon. ‘Shit, yeah, we should. Overslept. Sorry. Let’s get cracking.’

  When we were halfway between Ko Pha-Ngan and our island I told him what had happened with the corpse and how I’d dealt with it.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Richard!’ he’d shouted – only because the engine was so loud. ‘What the flying fuck did you do that for?’

  ‘Well, what should I have done?’

  ‘You should have left him there, you bloody idiot! What did it have to do with us? Nothing!’

  ‘I knew you’d say that,’ I said happily. ‘I knew it.’

  PRISONERS OF THE SUN

  Bible-Bashing

  No one was even slightly interested. A few asked ‘How was it?’ out of politeness, but as soon as I began to answer their eyes glazed over or their attention became diverted by something over my shoulder.

  At first I found this attitude pretty frustrating – I wanted to talk at length about how fucked up Ko Pha-Ngan was – and the frustration was compounded by the unenthusiastic response I got when I handed out my little presents. Françoise took one taste of the toothpaste and spat it out, saying, ‘Ugh, I did not remember the way it burns,’ and Keaty said I shouldn’t have bought Thai-brand batteries because they run out so fast. The only person who seemed at all grateful was Unhygienix. He went straight off for a shower after I gave him the bars, and later he gave me a glowing report on the thick lather they produced.

  But my frustration only lasted while Ko Pha-Ngan was fresh in my mind, which wasn’t long. Just as when I’d first arrived at the beach, my memory began to shut itself down. Steadily, quickly, so that within a week nothing much existed beyond the lagoon and its circle of protective cliffs. Nothing except the World, that is, and that had returned to its previous condition, a name to something faceless and indistinct.

  My worries about Zeph and Sammy were the last things to go. As late as the fifth night I was kept awake, fretting about what plans they and the mysterious Germans might be making. But it became hard to maintain that level of worry as the days passed, and still no one had turned up. Having said that, the day after the fretful fifth night I did ask Jed whether he’d also been thinking about the Zeph and Sammy problem, and he made a see-saw motion with his hands. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a little,’ he said. ‘But I think we’re OK.’

  ‘You do?’ I replied, already sensing the weight of the problem lifting.

  ‘Yeah. Those two were on the pilgrim’s route. They had guidebook written all over them. If not, like I already said, we’ll deal with it when it happens.’ He pulled a knot of hair out of his beard. ‘You know, Richard, one of these days I’m going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I’m going to ask him, what’s so fucking lonely about the Khao San Road?’

  I smiled. ‘Just before you punch his lights out, right?’

  The smile was not returned.

  Jaws One

  A few weeks after the Rice Run I woke up to the noise of rain on the longhouse roof. It had rained only three or four times since I’d arrived at the beach, and those had been no more than showers. This was a tropical storm, even heavier than the one on Ko Samui.

  A few of us huddled around the longhouse entrance, looking out across the clearing. The canopy ceiling was channelling the water into thick streams that shone like lasers and cut muddy holes into the earth. Keaty was standing under one of them, his top half obscured by the silver umbrella that exploded off his head. I only recognized him from his black legs and the faint sound of his laughter. Bugs was also standing outside. He had his head tilted so that one cheek was angled upwards, his arms were held slightly away from his body, and his palms were ready to catch the rain.

  ‘Thinks he’s Christ,’ muttered a voice behind me. I turned around and saw Jesse, a compact New Zealander who worked on the garden detail with Keaty. Jesse was one of the people I’d never had much cause to speak to, but I’d always suspected that he’d been the one to pick up my first John-Boy cue.

  I looked back at Bugs and smiled; there was something Christ-like about his pose. Either the pose or the beatific expression on his face, anyway.

  ‘Know what I mean?’ Jesse said.

  I smiled.

  ‘Maybe the carpentry’s gone to his head,’ said Cassie, who was also standing near, and we all chuckled. I would have added something but Jesse nudged me. Sal had emerged from the far end of the longhouse and was walking towards us. Gregorio was beside her, looking a little hassled.

  ‘What’s the delay?’ asked Sal, as she approached.

  Nobody answered her so I said, ‘Delay about what?’

  ‘Fishing, gardening, work.’

  Jesse shrugged. ‘Not much gardening to be done in the rain, Sal.’

  ‘The plants can be protected, Jesse. You can rig up a shelter.’

  ‘Plants need rain.’

  ‘They don’t need rain like this.’

  Jesse shrugged again.

  ‘And you, Richard? What will we eat with your rice if you don’t go fishing?’

  ‘I was waiting for Greg.’

  ‘Greg’s ready now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gregorio, and Étienne and Françoise also appeared. ‘We are ready now.’

  We jogged down to the beach, sliding around in the mud. I don’t know why we were jogging because we were soaked within seconds, and in any case, we were going to spend the next three hours in the sea. I suppose there was a general feeling that we wanted to get the fishing done as quickly as possible.

  While we jogged, I thought over the brief exchange under the longhouse entrance. I’d never mentioned the way Bugs irritated me, not even to Keaty. It hadn’t seemed like a wise idea, considering his standing in the camp, and my criticisms seemed so petty. But from the way Jesse and Cassie had been talking, I began to wonder if others felt the same way. Although they hadn’t said anything nasty they’d certainly been taking the piss, and until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me that people took the piss out of Bugs.

  The thing that most struck me was the way they’d hushed up when Sal came over. If it hadn’t been for that, the joking would have seemed far less telling. As it was, I felt like I’d witnessed some kind of division – however slight – and possibly been included in it. I decided I ought to find out more about Jesse and Cassie, if only to get to know them better. I’d have asked Gregorio, but I knew I’d get a uselessly diplomatic answer. Keaty or Jed were the ones to talk to.

  The sea was covered in a thick, low mist of vaporized raindrops. Under the shelter of a palm tree, we leant against our spears and shook our heads.

  ‘This is too stupid,’ said Françoise. ‘We cannot kill fish if we do not see them.’
/>   Étienne grunted his agreement. ‘We cannot even see the water.’

  ‘Yes, we use the mask,’ Gregorio replied, holding it up, and I groaned.

  ‘Is that what you normally do when it rains?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But that means only one person can fish at a time. It’s going to take for ever.’

  ‘It will take a long time, Richard.’

  ‘How about Moshe and the Yugoslavian girls, and the Swedes? They don’t have masks.’

  ‘They will try to catch fish but they will kill only a few… When it rains like this, we can get very hungry on the beach.’

  ‘And if it rains for five days?’ said Françoise. ‘It can rain for five days, no?’

  Gregorio shrugged and glanced at the sky. From the look of it, the rain wouldn’t ease up for at least another twenty-four hours. ‘We can get very hungry on the beach,’ he repeated, and dug his spear further into the wet earth.

  We lapsed into silence, each of us apparently waiting for someone else to take the first go on the mask. I wanted to stand under the palm tree all day, ignoring the enormity of the work ahead, because as soon as the work was begun we’d all be committed to finishing it.

  Five minutes passed, then another five, and then Étienne slung his spear over his shoulder.

  ‘No,’ I said, sighing. ‘I’ll go first.’

  ‘Are you sure, Richard? We can throw a coin.’

  ‘You’ve got a coin?’

  Étienne smiled. ‘We can throw… the mask. Face down, I will go first.’

  ‘I don’t mind going first.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, patting my arm. ‘So I shall go next.’