The Backpacking Housewife

by Janice Horton

  Very soon, everyone is standing around in excitement and we have over a hundred flapping and flailing little turtles in the bucket. I can’t quite believe how much energy they have in them.

  With a final examination of the nest (again, a whole length of arm inserted into the hole) a couple of stragglers are lifted gently to the surface and it occurs to me that these little chaps or chapesses might not have made it without Marielle’s intervention as they’d been so very deep down in the sand. I’m allowed to hold one of them in the palm of my hand and I find myself giving this newly born turtle a silent blessing for a long and happy life.

  A short time later, a runway to the sea has been carefully prepared at the top of the beach where the original nest site had once been. The sand has been levelled and a small sand bank has been formed on either side of the track to keep them all going in the right direction.

  I have permission from Ethan to attend the hatchling release, as long as I promise faithfully to return straight to my hammock afterwards.

  ‘And they’re off!’ Ethan yells, as one hundred and twenty-six turtle hatchlings are released from the bucket at the top of the beach.

  ‘It’s a bit like crab racing but far more thrilling and much more important,’ Jodie tells me.

  I’m reminded of my son’s graduation days. That feeling of being ever so proud, but at the same time frighteningly aware, that from this moment on your precious ones are living their lives independently of you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Ethan comes to stand by my side and explain the proceedings. ‘It’s very important that they get down the beach to the sea entirely under their own steam. That way, they will imprint this run into their instinct to survive, and eventually find their way back here to lay their eggs in decades to come.’

  I can’t help myself. It’s all so beautiful and mystical, the way all this works, that I burst into tears and wobble unsteadily on my one good foot. Ethan puts a strong arm around me and pulls me close to him. He feels so solid and warm and manly.

  I slide my arm through the crook of his arm for support and hug his waist while I sniffle.

  I happen to notice Marielle watching us. I see that she doesn’t look happy.

  And for a moment, I feel incredibly uncomfortable under her sour scrutiny.

  Ethan’s laughing but there are tears shining in his eyes and he lifts my chin with his index finger to see tears running down my face. ‘Don’t get me started. I’m a softie for a good cry myself.’

  I like seeing a big manly man like him showing his emotions. It tugs at my heartstrings.

  ‘I’m sorry. This is such a special day,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘It’s okay. We know how you feel. It’s what we do here. Look around you…’

  And when I look around, I see that Laura and Jodie are wiping away tears too and George and David are kneeling at the water’s edge, crying their encouragement to all those brave tiny swimmers who’re trying really hard to get out to sea but whose little flapping flippers don’t seem to be getting them anywhere, and to those tiny souls who’re being thrown back and upended onto the sand by the incoming waves.

  ‘These hatchlings would normally be vulnerable to being picked off by birds and lemurs and lizards and even monkeys, but today these little guys are getting the red-carpet treatment,’ Ethan tells me.

  ‘Come on, run, run. You can do it mon petite!’ I hear Marielle urging.

  And she too is wiping away her tears.

  It’s the second day of my beachside hammock confinement. I’m still in a heck of a lot of pain and I’m really worried that if the infection isn’t under control by tomorrow that I’ll have to leave the island to go to a hospital goodness knows where. So, I’m still doing as I’m told and keeping my foot elevated. Jodie and Laura and George and David have been really kind, coming over to check on me, bringing iced coffee or water and asking me if I need anything.

  I keep asking what is happening with the nests and how many nesting turtles have come up the beach while I’ve been so inconveniently indisposed. Out of everyone, I feel Marielle is the least sympathetic to my plight. I’ve seen her rolling her eyes at the sight of me with my foot on Ethan’s lap over the past couple of days, while he has insisted on checking and cleaning and dressing my foot for me. I don’t know if it’s because she’s seriously irritated with my chronic uselessness or if she’s had her smouldering eyes on Ethan all along.

  I have a theory that she sees me as some kind of threat which, of course, is absolutely ridiculous – although I have been monopolising a lot of Ethan’s attention lately and he did hug me very tightly on the beach during the hatchling release.

  It irks me how busy everyone is here except me. Last night, I’m told, there were literally dozens of nesting turtles on the beach and today, George and David have been busy rehousing two nests – and around two hundred and fifty eggs – into the hatchery.

  This morning, Jodie and Laura reported a suspicious small boat at the other side of the rocks in the lagoon and they staged a sit-in on the beach for several hours before the suspected poacher (who was trying to pose as a lone fisherman) eventually gave up and went away again.

  I can’t help but feel like I’m really missing out and I’m so very bored of sitting around.

  I keep checking to see if I might have a signal on my cellphone, but I never do, even when one of the others is jumping about holding their phone in the air yelling ‘signal!’

  I also keep forgetting to charge my phone when the generator is running.

  Lunch today is just plain rice, cooked by Marielle. She’s obviously bored cooking for everyone. This also makes me feel bad. I’d love to get into the kitchen and start creating.

  I’ve been drinking so much iced coffee and water this morning to try and stop myself feeling hungry – another downside to boredom – that it is a real bother to have to get out of the hammock to go to the bathroom every hour or so. With effort I hop over to the bungalow, having to go past the kitchen window, which is much higher than I am tall, when I hear Mariella’s shrill voice mentioning my name. I stop to listen.

  ‘I think it was a very bad idea for Lori to come here with you. I don’t understand. Why would you even think to bring her to this island when she has such an injury?’

  The voice responding belongs to Jodie. ‘But, Marielle, we weren’t to know her foot would get worse!’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if she could cook our meals, but she is quite useless!’ Marielle’s voice rattles through the window at me like the sound of a venomous snake.

  I feel my face flood with heat and embarrassment. My eyes fill with tears, because I know she is right. I am quite useless. Worse, I’m a burden. I really should leave here as soon as possible. When I get back to the beach and before I can climb back into my hammock, I see Ethan is waiting for me, brandishing the first aid kit again.

  ‘Right, come on, for better or worse. Let’s see how it looks this afternoon.’

  I sit down in front of him on the bench so he can remove the dressing.

  I’m thinking this is probably as good a time as any to tell him that I’m planning to leave here anyway, whether or not he decides I need to go to hospital. I do know that tomorrow is the day we have a boat delivery of water and fresh food supplies. So, I’ll be able to buy a lift to the next island. But he speaks before I can get my words out. His voice is still full of concern.

  ‘How are you feeling, Lori? Do you still have a temperature?’

  ‘Erm, I don’t really know,’ I answer him honestly. ‘It’s hard to tell in this heat.’

  Then the dressing is off and we both look down at the offending foot.

  ‘Very good. Excellent! It’s nice and clean and it’s started to heal,’ he tells me triumphantly.

  ‘Really? The infection has gone?’

  ‘Aye. No doubt all thanks to those post-surgery strength antibiotics you’ve been taking.’

  ‘I think it’s down to
you that I haven’t ended up with blood poisoning,’ I tell him gratefully. I’m tearing up again. I seem to be doing an awful lot of crying lately. I’m like a ball of pent up tense emotions and anxiety. ‘I mean, there’s a really good chance you’ve saved my life and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you,’ I blubber.

  I’m really going to miss Ethan. I’m going to miss getting to know him better.

  He takes both my hands in his and pulls me towards him. ‘You are very welcome.’

  Then Marielle’s head pops up from the shrubbery and her shrill voice cuts through the moment I am about to tell him that I’m planning to leave tomorrow. ‘Hey Lori, I just heard Ethan say your foot is beaucoup better today. Does that also mean you are able to cook dinner for us all later?’

  ‘Sure. Yes, I’m much better today,’ I yell back to her.

  ‘Tres bon!’ she replies, managing to look peeved and relived both at the same time.

  It’s almost 3.30 p.m. and as I’ve now been cleared for kitchen duty, it’s time to prep some food for dinner. I take a rummage through the larder and I’m quite impressed by the tins and jars and packets of dried herbs and spices and other condiments in there. We have some fresh vegetables left too. We have no fish today – everyone has been far too busy to catch any – so I decide I’m going to put together a papaya salad, a spicy bean and vegetable dish that I can serve up with rice and a caramel sticky banana and mango dessert.

  While I’m prepping, I have a good view all around me from the open plan kitchen.

  I see Laura and Jodie patrolling the beach. David and George are in the hammocks, reading.

  Ethan and Marielle are standing in front of the hatchery and their body language catches my eye and also makes me catch my breath. I see he is standing in front of her with his back to me but from his stance, with his legs apart and his feet planted firmly in the sand, one hand on his hip and the other raking desperately through his hair in exasperation, there is no mistaking that these two are having some kind of an issue.

  I can see he is listening attentively to her while she is telling him something in a way that only a French woman can – with an elegance that challenges the twisted rage on her angry face.

  I’m stunned. What the heck is happening here?!

  He seems to be challenging her, trying to explain something, but she is shaking her head as if she’s refusing to listen. I watch in horror as Marielle’s long thin brown arms flail about in fury. She’s yelling at him now. I can hear her voice but not what she is saying, and anyway I think she is speaking French. Then suddenly her hand makes violent contact with the side of his face. I hear the slap. George and David hear it too and I see them look over to the hatchery.

  Ethan shakes his head in recoil and then he storms angrily away from her up the beach.

  I realise I am shaking. I put my prepping knife down before I accidently cut myself.

  Is this my fault? Was I wrong to think he was unattached?

  I’m confused and upset and suddenly I feel desperately alone again.

  I feel so foolish about taking such a liking to Ethan. For the first couple of days, until my foot got infected, Marielle was really nice to me and then, in the days that have followed, she’s progressively become more distant and surly towards me.

  Now I know it wasn’t just because she thinks I’m totally useless.

  Her venomous attitude and her outrageous display of violence on the beach towards Ethan today suggest that there is something much deeper going on here. I believe that she must think that either I’ve been flirting with Ethan or that he’s been flirting with me.

  Why else would she attack him like that?

  Oh my … how awful. I’ve become the other woman even if only in my imagination.

  But was I flirting with him? Really? Just in being friendly and enjoying his company?

  My daydreams and fantasies are, after all, just my own private thoughts.

  But have I failed to veil my attraction to Ethan?

  Has the connection we’ve made and the sparks that have flown between us been visible to everyone? If so, then I’m really going to have to keep my libido much more firmly under control. I finish prepping the meal and immerse myself in cooking it.

  After a while, I see Ethan and Marielle coming out of Turtle HQ where they’ve been arguing for the past couple of hours (annoyingly in French, so I can’t understand what they are actually saying) and then they both disappear into his bungalow. I can’t help but wonder (enviously, to my shame) if they are making up their differences in private. I felt regrettably foolish.

  Despite my cooking up a meal to impress, Ethan and Marielle don’t appear for dinner.

  I save what’s left of the meal for them in case they reappear and want it later.

  After our dinner, the rest of us sat around the big wooden table on the beach, allowing our stomachs to rest before the first evening beach patrol. We occupy ourselves by playing a game of poker. Everyone has their eyes down while considering their cards and nobody says anything at all about what happened at the camp between Marielle and Ethan but the atmosphere is tangible. I’m staring down at my cards and my mind is a whirl of anguish and guilt. I still can’t believe that after being here for almost a week, I didn’t realise that he and Marielle have something going on between them.

  But then, if they’re in a relationship, why is she sharing a room with me?

  It doesn’t make any sense. My stomach is tied up in knots.

  Has Marielle seen the lust on my blissed-out face over these past few days, while Ethan’s been bandaging my foot. Has everyone else seen it too?

  Omygosh … maybe they, too, blame me and think this is all my fault?

  Then we hear raised voices coming from Ethan’s bungalow.

  I can’t stand it anymore, so I blurt out the words playing in my head.

  ‘I didn’t realise they were a couple. I really had no idea. Do you think this is my fault?’

  Jodie looks up casually from her cards. ‘No way. This has nothing to do with you, Lori.’

  ‘But, Jodie…’ I reason. ‘I overheard Marielle saying to you in the kitchen earlier today that she didn’t like me being here and that she thought I was useless with my infected foot.’

  David slaps down two of his cards on the table, making me jump out of my skin.

  ‘No, Lori. Jodie’s right.’ He sighs. ‘This is just a replay of what happened last week.’

  ‘And the week before that…’ George confides. ‘That’s married life, I guess?’

  ‘Marielle moved out of his bungalow soon after we got here,’ David divulges.

  I’m so shocked that my cards seem to scatter everywhere under their own ruse.

  ‘They’re married?’ I gasp.

  Chapter 10

  Koh Phi Tao (iii)

  This morning, for the first time in days, I’m relieved to have no pain in my foot. I also wake to find that Marielle is up and out of our hut before me despite coming back late last night. I heard her creeping back to our bungalow and into her hammock in the early hours. I had feigned sleep to avoid a confrontation with her and hardly slept a wink, mulling over every second of every day since I arrived here, searching for clues that might have told me that Ethan and Marielle were married. I couldn’t come up with a single one.

  I’m now thinking there must be something seriously wrong with my relationship radar.

  I mean, I hadn’t a clue that my own husband and my best friend were in a long-term affair.

  And, when I’d developed a crush on Jack, I’d wrongly assumed he was married.

  Now I’d done it in reverse by wrongly assuming Ethan wasn’t.

  Oh, Lord. What a terrible mess. I really should know better and I really should apologise to Marielle this morning. I’ll tell her that I’m leaving today.

  When I walk into breakfast, I see my chance. Marielle is sitting having breakfast alone.

  I assume that everyone else, including Ethan, is down on the b
each already.

  ‘Marielle, I just want to say that I’m so sorry about what has happened. I hope that you and Ethan can find a way to move on from this and that you can be happy together.’

  She takes off her dark sunglasses and looks at me. Her eyes are tired and bloodshot.

  ‘And I didn’t know you two were married,’ I stammer, getting to the point.

  I plonk myself down in the chair opposite her without asking first because my legs feel weak and wobbly. She shrugs her skinny brown shoulders at me and wears a glib expression.

  ‘Merci … but it is impossible. We have tried too many times. This time, I know we are not right to keep trying. Nous sommes touts hors d’amour – we are all out of love for each other.’

  I stare at her, blindsided, mouth open, wondering what to say next.

  ‘We fell in and out of love on this island!’ She stabs a long fingernail into the table between us and I leap back in fright. ‘You see, here is not real life. That means the love is not real either. It’s not possible for love found here to last beyond these shores. D’accord?’

  I nod my head like one of those little nodding desk toys.

  ‘But it is sweet of you to say this to me, Lori. Because I know I have not been so sympathetic to you. Ethan has told me he was very worried about you and your foot. It was very bad, no?’

  ‘No. I mean yes. Well, I’m all better now. Thanks to him,’ I say to her meekly.

  She pats my hand to be reassuring but it feels more like a violent slap.

  ‘Bon, I’m glad. Anyway, I must get packed. The supply boat will be here soon. Adieu.’

  I stand up. ‘You are leaving?’

  ‘Oui. I have no wish to stay. Now they can all appreciate your cooking, Lori.’

  I open my mouth to say that I’m leaving too, but then close it again while reconsidering.

  The only reason I’d decided to leave today was because I thought I’d offended Marielle and because she’d said I was totally useless. But clearly, if she’s leaving, then I might have a second chance and another whole week here in which to make myself thoroughly useful.