The Backpacking Housewife

by Janice Horton

  Now that my foot’s healing, I can be mobile again and help save some turtles.

  I offer her two kisses on the sides of her face. ‘Bon voyage, Marielle.’

  When the boat comes in, we all help to unload the weekly supply of ten five-gallon drinking water containers, three boxes of vegetables and dried goods and a crate of beers. Then we all stand on the beach and wave to Marielle as she leaves us. All except for Ethan. He stands among us but keeps his hands in his pockets and a frown on his face. Then, when the boat and Marielle are finally out of sight and we’ve all turned to start back up the beach, I hear him sigh heavily. As the others are already way ahead of us, I hang back to ask him if he’s okay. He nods and shrugs and kicks the sand with his bare feet.

  ‘Aye, I’m okay, thanks. You know, I really don’t understand why she even came back here again. We’ve been separated for three years and hardly seen each other. Then, for some reason she decides to come out to the island again to see if we are “still meant to be together”. Those were her words. It was all her idea. Not mine. I tried to do the right thing and give it a shot. But it was a big mistake.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. At least you tried.’ This is the only thing I can think to say in response.

  He raises his hands in the air as if surrendering or praising something. ‘Now she wants a divorce. Well, I say fuck you, Marielle. I’m glad it’s finally fucking over!’

  I breathe a sigh of relief on his behalf. ‘Well, if you are not too upset, then that’s good.’

  ‘Yes. It is good. Everything is fine. Don’t look so worried, Lori.’

  I laugh. ‘Well, it’s just that I haven’t ever heard you swear like that before.’

  ‘Did I offend you? If I did, then I apologise. I really should mind my manners.’

  ‘No. I like to swear too sometimes. If I do then the F-word is the one I like to use best.’

  Ethan roars with laughter. ‘Yeah, there’s something satisfying about it, isn’t there?’

  I giggle and he gives me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on him.

  We walk up the beach together. I’m trying to digest what he’s just told me.

  ‘How long have you been married?’ I ask him, hoping I’m not prying too much.

  ‘Four years. What’s that old saying? Marry in haste, regret at leisure. And you?’

  ‘Twenty-five years and two grown up kids.’

  He stops walking and looks at me in awe. ‘Oh, that’s a long time. I always wanted kids but I’m glad we didn’t have any. We would have made terrible parents.’

  ‘I feel we did a good job with ours. I’m very proud of them both.’

  ‘So no regrets then?’

  ‘No, I don’t have any regrets. Like you, I’m just ready to move on.’

  ‘You said you and your husband were recently separated?’

  ‘Yes. He wants a divorce too.’

  ‘And do you? Do you want a divorce?’

  I nod. ‘Yes. I do. It’s the only way forward.’

  He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. It feels like he’s taken hold of my heart and squeezed it too. ‘Aye, let’s look to the future. Thank you for listening and for being here, Lori. I’m sorry you’re going through the same thing, but it really helps to know someone understands, eh?’

  ‘I think Never Look Back should be our mutual mantra,’ I say to him.

  ‘And Don’t Look Back in Anger should be our song,’ he laughs.

  Then he points to my foot in a bandage dressing and a clingfilm wrap.

  ‘And how is your foot feeling today, Lori?’

  I smile back at him. ‘It’s much better thank you, Ethan. I’m reporting for duty.’

  I spend most of the day in the kitchen preparing both lunch and dinner and I enjoy myself. The new supplies make it easy for me to put together a vat of Tom Yum soup, a green mango salad, a delicious vegetable and dhal red curry, and a coconut tapioca pudding for dessert.

  Everyone is ecstatic. It’s amazing how good food can lift everyone’s mood.

  After dinner (it was the guys’ turn to wash dishes) Ethan invites me to patrol the beach with him. I still have to wrap up my foot to protect it from water or sand, but now I’m using a plastic bag rather than a rubber boot, to make sure nothing agitates my fragile newly-healed skin.

  ‘Before we go to the beach there is something I want you to hear, Lori.’

  ‘Okay. I’m listening?’

  ‘Not here. In the jungle.’

  ‘Will there be snakes?’ I ask him, sounding a little reluctant.

  ‘No snakes. Anyway, they are more afraid of you, than you are of them.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I categorically insist.

  But I follow him and his narrow red beam of light into the jungle.

  Thankfully, we don’t walk in too far before Ethan stops and turns out the light from the torch, plunging us into complete darkness. With the tree canopy overhead, there isn’t even any moonlight. I feel him take my hand in his and I squeeze hold of it tightly as we stand side by side in the tropical fauna. ‘Listen…’ he says in a whisper.

  So I do. I take a deep breath of dense damp and steamy jungle air and then try to slow my breathing and concentrate on the cacophony of sounds all around me. At first it all sounds like an overwhelming commotion of shrieks and clicks and rattles in the forest but then slowly I begin to pick out the individual sounds that make up the multi-dimensional mass.

  I hear the rustlings of lemurs and the howl of monkeys in the trees. I recognise the sound of crickets and the rhythmic chirping of tree frogs and bull frogs croaking in baritone in the undergrowth while the warbles and squeaks of romancing lizards on the ground sound too close for comfort. Then there’s something else too – a repetitive and quite distinctive sound that echoes all around us. I can hardly believe what my ears are hearing.

  ‘Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuuuuck youuuu!’

  I start laughing. ‘What the…? What is that?’

  ‘That is the tokay gecko,’ Ethan tells me proudly.

  ‘That is a gecko … and it’s actually swearing?’ I clarify.

  ‘Aye. Otherwise known as the fuck-you-lizard. It’s common all over South East Asia. I just wanted you to know I’m not the only one on the island who has a penchant for swearing.’

  I listen in amusement to lots more calls of ‘fuck you’ coming at us from all directions.

  ‘It’s … well … incredible and quite unbelievable!’

  ‘It’s the mating call,’ Ethan says, hardly supressing his chortles.

  We laugh until our sides ached and alternately repeat the cry all the way back to the camp. The lads and lassies (Ethan, being Scottish, likes to call the girls ‘lassies’) seem more amused that I hadn’t ever heard the night time call of the tokay gecko before now.

  ‘I can hardly sleep for the ones shouting fuck you all night in our bathroom,’ Laura tells me.

  ‘Well, that’s because I have the Barry White of bullfrogs in mine,’ I groan. ‘He’s louder than anything else on this island. If anyone wants to come in and catch him for me I’d be very grateful. I’ve hardly managed a wink of sleep since I got here.’

  Ethan and I are on night shift patrol together tonight. I realise, as we leave camp for the beach with our red-light torches, we are being watched by the others. It seems that we have become interesting by default now that Marielle has left. We head towards the rocky inlet that poachers have been using to hide their boats and all the while we are looking for turtle tyre tracks coming up from the surf line. Not seeing any turtles, we sit on the rocks for a while because Ethan has spotted a small boat off shore. He thinks it could be poachers pretending to be fishing.

  So, we keep our torches switched on, so they will know we are there and watching them.

  ‘The plan is always to be non-confrontational. If the person knows we are watching, they might feel intimidated enough to go away and then our job is done,’ Ethan tells me.

  After a while, the boa
t does go away and so we start our walk back down the beach.

  With great excitement, I immediately spot some tracks and we follow a huge old turtle to the top of the beach, where she rummages around with great effort under her massive weight before eventually settling down to dig her nest pit. We sit back quietly to watch her.

  ‘This nest will need moving, won’t it?’ I say, noting the proximity to the poacher’s inlet.

  ‘That’s right, Lori. First thing tomorrow morning, it will be our job to transfer all her eggs into the hatchery for safe keeping.’

  I have to stop myself from squealing with excitement because at last I’m going to be doing what I actually came here to do – help save some turtles.

  We monitor the nesting mother until she finishes digging her pit and enters her trance like state while laying her eggs. Then I approach carefully to take her photo and make a note of her unique markings. She is a fully mature heavy turtle. One and a half metres across her shell. She’s showing her age too, as her shell is rough and looks a little worse for wear in places. Ethan says he recognises her from a triangle shaped chunk missing from the outer edge of her shell. ‘This is Pizza,’ he says. ‘She’s been here twice this season already. I’ve a feeling this might be her last nest for a few years or possibly for good, because she’s getting really old now.’

  I feel so honoured to be here for what might be Pizza’s last efforts to make babies.

  I also feel a great responsibility of care for her eggs when we transfer them tomorrow.

  At midnight I go back to my hut, in which I’m now alone, and climb into my hammock. I enjoy being cocooned in the dark because it somehow feels symbolic of my life right now. I’m in the process of great change, like a caterpillar, waiting to become a butterfly.

  I don’t get much sleep though, thanks to Barry the bullfrog White in the bathroom.

  But hanging from the ceiling wrapped up in white netting is certainly conducive to thinking.

  And it’s Marielle’s words that are at the forefront of my mind right now.

  They are on repeat in my head like some kind of ethereal warning.

  We fell in and out of love on this island…

  The way she spoke, so passionately, hit a nerve with me.

  I understand what she was trying to convey and therefore I feel I understand her.

  To some extent I even sympathise, because I’ve been that angry too, and not so long ago.

  Even though she’d violently struck out at Ethan, which was quite unforgivable, I completely understand why she did it – why she lashed out, why she wanted to hurt him.

  She had lost him. It was already over. She’d lost her marriage.

  Her words and her pain take me straight back to a time not so long ago, in my own life, when I’d had a split second to choose between the knife or my passport.

  It had been bone-jarringly painful to walk away and leave everything behind me.

  And, woman to woman, I know that’s what Marielle had to do today too.

  Here is not real life. So the love is not real either.

  I agree that this place is as far from reality as you can possibly imagine.

  It’s not possible for love found here to last beyond these shores.

  And these are the words that hit me the hardest.

  What’s that old saying about holiday romances? That they’ll never last?

  Because they are only ever perfect while you are in the perfect place?

  The next day, I’m up at first light, keen to help move Pizza’s eggs into the hatchery.

  Ethan, always the first to rise, is having breakfast. ‘Good morning, Lori.’

  ‘Good morning Ethan. I see it’s another beautiful day and you are wearing another very beautiful and colourful shirt – are those birds of paradise you have on there?’

  ‘Aye, another perfect day in paradise.’

  But his voice is flat and he’s not looking up at me. Sensing he’s upset, I sit down opposite him, wondering if he too is feeling bad about Marielle. Then, as he looks up at me over the coffee pot, I see his badly cut and swollen eye. ‘Oh, Ethan. My goodness … what happened?’

  He pours me a cup of coffee. ‘We had a bit of trouble on the beach last night.’

  ‘What? When? I heard nothing? And what about the others – are they okay?’

  I know that when I’d said goodnight last night, everything on the beach and in the camp had been absolutely fine. David and George had relieved us at midnight and I’d gone to my room and climbed straight into my hammock. I’m realising now that I must have slept through some kind of commotion and even the noise of the bullfrog.

  ‘Aye, they’re okay. I’m just glad they came and got me and didn’t try to handle the situation themselves. David woke me at 3 a.m. to say they’d seen a couple of poachers on the beach. A nest was being raided. I managed to tackle one of the men and that’s how I got the black eye. They both got away, unfortunately, and with most of the eggs from Pizza’s new nest.’

  I immediately burst into tears. ‘Oh no, poor Pizza. All her babies. The last of her babies!’

  Ethan shrugs despondently. ‘We do what we can here. Sometimes it’s not enough.’

  I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand. ‘And poor you, getting punched.’

  He says nothing and hands me his paper napkin.

  I weep some more and then blow my nose on it.

  Chapter 11

  Koh Phi Tao (iv)

  In just a few days, turtle-nesting season here on Koh Phi Tao will be over. I’m reluctantly counting down to our very last day here because I really don’t want it to end. Ethan and the lads have been here for almost eight weeks now and the girls and I have only been here for the time it takes to have a holiday – but it somehow feels like I’ve been here a lifetime.

  I’m already starting to fret about missing the group and this island in my life. In such a short time, they have become like another family to me.

  I’ve also learned so much about turtle conservation. Now that my foot has healed, and I’m playing my full part in all the tasks and activities, the days are incredibly full and busy. We do still occasionally have a turtle coming up the beach at night, so we have stepped up our vigils by overlapping our shift rotas, but our efforts are now mainly concentrated on the nests hatching from their secret locations at the top of the beach and also in the hatchery.

  Every day now, hundreds of baby turtles are being born and we are overseeing their safe passage into the sea. This has lifted everyone’s mood after the terrible loss of poor Pizza’s nest a few nights ago. If I’m not on beach patrol with Ethan or taking my turn at kitchen duty, I’m spending my time happily sitting in the middle of the hatchery in my bikini and my oversized sun hat, watching for little rumbles in the sand and waiting for tiny flippers to appear and little heads to emerge and take their first breath of fresh island air. I greet each one as it is born and gather it up and place it very carefully into the collecting bucket with all its brothers or sisters.

  Interestingly, each nest will either be all male or all female, depending on the ground temperature in their sixty days or so of incubation time. Warmer temperatures in the nest always produce females. Cooler nests always produce males. Ethan says the easiest way to remember this is to say, ‘cool dudes and hot chicks.’

  In the evenings, despite our few resources and only a few red lights to illuminate the place after dark, we are also kept busy because Ethan has a great love of games and team-building exercises and he says it’s not a good thing for any of us to be left alone with too much time in our own company on an island that can be walked around in fifteen minutes.

  He says it brings on island craziness, something he’s seen too many times.

  I wonder if he is referring to Marielle’s now famous temper tantrums?

  So, between our evening shifts and lazy afternoons we play board games and card games and beer pong. I’m getting really good at beer pong! We also hold quizzes. We pair up i
nto teams – it’s always the lads, the lassies, and Ethan and I, and we take turns to stage the questions.

  All of this is taken quite seriously, as the winning team gets a decent prize.

  It could be the last packet of cookies or a free pass to get out of washing up duty.

  Another popular game involves Ethan on his guitar enthusiastically playing a series of pop intro tunes for us to guess. This is always hilarious, with people humming and singing bits of tunes and holding up the next intro because they claim they know it and ‘it’s just on the tip of my tongue’. I also love our time sitting around singing while Ethan and George are jamming away on their guitars and we are all belting out iconic songs at the top of our voices whether we can hold a tune or not. We sing songs by The Eagles (Hotel California, Tequila Sunrise, Lyin’ Eyes) and some of the old classics by Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby McGee, Mercedes Benz) and sometimes we even have the howling monkeys in the trees joining in with us. It’s so much fun. I’m going to miss those evenings so much.

  Our very last evening on the island, after a very beautiful and productive last day, we have an interesting meal together. I say interesting because I manage to successfully combine a jar of peanut butter with noodles and mango with chilli and rice. Ethan provides us with a red snapper that he caught while on his last guard duty on the rocks at the end of the beach. The lads make a fish curry with it and the girls provide our dessert of pineapple pudding.

  After dinner, while the others are cleaning up, Ethan and I take our last walk down the beach together to watch the sunset, just as we’ve been doing here on most evenings since Marielle left. He calls it our ‘grown-up time’ together.

  And there is always something in the air between us. A tension. A frisson.

  We are acutely aware of our connection but we don’t dare speak of it. So our conversations are deliberately steered away from anything overtly personal in case we inadvertently veer into something sensitive. I’ll admit, even though every day is full of wonderful times, this is my very favourite time of the day; when we stroll down to the water’s edge to sit and sip our beer and chat together.