Catching the Sun

by Tony Parsons

  Hearing the voices calling to the missing, I lurched on, willing some strength into my legs. The vision of Tess and the children refused to leave me. It stung my eyes and churned my stomach and clawed my heart.

  I did my best to avoid the dead fish. Sometimes I accidentally stepped on one of them and, when that happened, something inside me seemed to scream to be released.

  I could not understand what I was looking at.

  Sitting inland in the middle of the mangrove swamp, among the exposed tangled roots of the trees and the slick black mud, was a boat. It was upright and untouched, and presenting itself in perfect profile, like the pictures of boats that Keeva and Rory had drawn when they were younger.

  It was grey – a police boat, or an army or navy boat – with a number stencilled on the side: 813, it said, on its unscratched side, as though that might still mean something to someone. When I called out there was no reply, and I looked at my watch but it was gone, so I turned away, touching my bare wrist, and walked out of the mangrove trees and towards home.

  Just outside the mangrove swamp a man was waiting for me. Tall, muscular, his hair fair and cropped. His T-shirt was ripped to pieces and hung on him like rags. He was a big man who had been crying.

  ‘I saw you looking at the boat,’ he said, and I felt the sand burning my feet and I stared down and wished I had my sandals. ‘There’s nobody on it,’ he said, glancing back at the mangroves. ‘I checked. It took me a long time to get to it.’ He had the perfect English of the Scandinavian. ‘The trees are so thick.’

  I had not stopped walking.

  I wasn’t moving fast but I had kept going.

  The man was behind me now. I was heading south, the direction of home, towards Hat Nai Yang, with the quiet sea on my right.

  So still, the sea.

  But I kept looking at it, not trusting it, not believing it.

  The man was by my side, trying to keep up. He touched my arm and left his hand there. I stopped and looked at him and I felt my hands curl into fists.

  I felt sorry for him. But I had to get home. That was the only thing in the world that mattered.

  ‘I am searching for a boy,’ he said. ‘My son. I wish I had a photo. But I have no photo.’ He turned in the direction I had come from. ‘We were on Khao Lak beach. It was hit hard.’

  We both glanced north. The dead fish had gone now and it looked like a postcard that you would send to someone, trying to make them understand the beauty of this island.

  ‘I haven’t seen a boy,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘If you see my son …’ he said. He touched his swimming trunks. ‘I wish I had a picture. He is four years old,’ said the man. ‘A Norwegian boy called Ole. Like the famous footballer. Ole. A very special boy.’ He smiled, lighting up his big face. He was smiling at a memory. ‘At his nursery, Ole would hug all the children when he arrived. Every morning. Every child. He is a very special boy. He hugged every child. A happy, loving boy.’

  His voice cracked and he hung his head and cried. I held him then and I let him cry in my arms. It didn’t last long. A few seconds. We broke apart and he wiped his nose on the back of his hand, looking down. I put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You will find your son,’ I said – a ridiculous, absurd, foolish thing to promise, although I believed it. I needed to believe it.

  ‘He is a loving, special boy,’ the man said.

  I nodded.

  Then I saw the others.

  Coming from the north, emerging out of the trees and on to that endless white beach, came the refugees from Khao Lak. Cut and bruised and wearing T-shirts and shorts and beachwear that had been shredded to tatters. A few of them sobbing, but most of them blank as the grave.

  All of them were moving as if in a dream, as though they did not believe what had happened that day. For the first time I knew there were a lot of people who were missing.

  The Norwegian man moved towards them, asking if they had seen a boy, and I turned away, breaking into a tumbling sort of run, the tears suddenly streaming.

  ‘Tess,’ I said out loud, and my wife’s name choked at the top of my throat and got stuck behind the back of my eyes, and then I said it again.

  The sun was high and I felt it burning my face, my legs, and the top of my feet.

  The mangroves of the far north of the island were behind me now, and the beach was lined with the familiar casuarina trees, tall and feathery and looking like the trees of home.

  I stopped when I saw the place where the old massage lady had sat with her knitting. But she was no longer there.

  I walked in the edge of the water, which helped soothe the burning skin on my feet, until I came to the first hotel. I wandered inside, desperate for water, desperate for the phone, steeling myself for what I would see. But there was only strange, inexplicable normality.

  At the hotel desk a young couple had just arrived and the receptionist was giving them a welcome cocktail and a garland, a deep wai and a professional smile so slick that it appeared to glow with love. There were planes? But how could there still be planes? How could people be starting their holiday today? The world should have stopped turning.

  But the world had not stopped turning, and I felt a rage unlike anything I had ever known.

  An older couple were standing at the desk, and they had the deep tans of a month in the sun on their well-fed faces. There were suitcases at their sandaled feet. On their way home and unhappy. They were arguing about their bill.

  ‘But we have not had full use of the spa,’ said the man. ‘Do you speak English? Fetch me your manager. We have not had full use of the spa!’

  People were strolling into the restaurant, piling their plates high at the seafood buffet. A lone guitarist was playing ‘Hotel California’.

  A bellboy scuttled towards me and asked me if I needed help.

  ‘I need to use a telephone,’ I said. ‘I need to call my wife. It is very urgent. Do you understand?’

  ‘Sir,’ he said, backing away from me, really looking at me for the first time, seeing the mess I was in, the sunburned skin streaked with blood and mud and tears. ‘The telephones are all out,’ he told me.

  The little line of seafood restaurants that had stood on Hat Nai Yang were gone. The Almost World Famous Seafood Grill was gone. All of them were gone. Nothing remained. No debris, no sign, no people. As if none of it had ever existed.

  My eyes scanned the bay, the perfect bow-shape bay of Hat Nai Yang, and the sea was as calm as ever. I must have walked all day, for the sun was going down fast now, bleeding extravagant red and orange streamers across the horizon, and all at once I felt all the parts of me that ached and were sore and had bled, and it was nothing next to the fear that something had happened to my family.

  I craned my neck and stared up at the little green hill that rises high above the southern tip of Hat Nai Yang, and I headed up the hill towards my home, the dread growing inside me like a tumour.

  The dog saw me first.

  Mister barked once, twice, and came running down the dirt-track road, his wild eyes gleaming, mad with joy to see me, as if we had reached the end of some glorious game. Then Keeva and Rory were running behind him, trying to keep up, and when the dog reached me, sniffing and jumping and barking, they stood back for a moment, hovering uncertainly between smiles and tears, until I went to them, took the pair of them in my arms, kissing their heads, smelling their smell of sea and sunblock.

  ‘Do you know how much I love you?’ I said, looking at their upturned faces.

  ‘We know,’ Keeva said, and her face crumpled. ‘We love you too. We thought that you were … gone.’

  She buried her face against my chest.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m all right.’

  I saw Tess appear in the doorway of the little house and she looked at me for a moment and began running down the dirt-track road.

  ‘Mister went to the top of the hill,’ Rory said, dry-eyed and pale, holding the dog. ‘That’s where we fou
nd him.’

  ‘We saw the big wave,’ Keeva said, crying quite hard now. ‘Is that what cut your face, Daddy?’

  Then Tess was there, and she said my name once as she crashed against me and I gathered them all up in my arms, the three of them, the dog barking somewhere around our feet, and we stood there with no more words to say just yet, and the four of us held on to each other as if the world might end but we would never let go.

  17

  Mr Botan was staring out to sea, as if really looking at it for the first time, and when I said his name he turned to face me. He took my arms in his hands and squeezed them, as if making sure that I was really there.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You are safe. We are all safe. The two families who live on this road.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re safe. Thank God.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he said, and he glanced at the sea, still holding my arms. ‘We have lost everything,’ he said. ‘The restaurant. The boat. But thank God.’

  I felt a choking sob rise in my throat, a sob with shock and grief and relief all mixed, and I forced it down, as if it was a gutful of filthy water. I leaned against Mr Botan for support and he smiled at me and held me up and my eyes burned with gratitude. He took my arm and led me to our homes. Mrs Botan was sitting on their front porch. Tess was by her side, holding on to the hem of Mrs Botan’s apron. The children watched uncertainly, not sure how to act, not responding to Mister’s invitation to come and play. Mrs Botan stood up as her husband and I came towards them. She had been rolling a cigarette and now she handed it to her husband.

  ‘Mai nam mai,’ Mrs Botan said, addressing me, as if I could speak Thai. And somehow I found that I could.

  Mai nam mai. There is no water.

  ‘No,’ Tess said, suddenly standing up. ‘We have water.’

  It was not just the water that was out.

  There was no electricity and the red satellite dish could not bring us the news we needed, the news that would tell us what had happened today. I thought of the hotel where they acted as if nothing had changed, and I found it hard to believe that the entire island had been hit. But then I remembered the Norwegian from Khao Lak, and the missing boy, his special boy, and I sensed the enormity of the day.

  The children played in the yard with the dog, not going far, and as I brought the bottled water from the garage I watched them, feeling anxious when they were out of my sight.

  I paced the area around the house, for I found that I could not sit still more than a short while. And when it became too much I would take myself to a quiet corner of the shed where I kept the bike, and there I would weep, silently and helplessly, crying as if I was broken, as if something inside me had been smashed to pieces by the day. I lost count of the times I went alone to the garage to empty myself of all those feelings that I could not even name, and it would have gone on, but in the end I looked up and Tess was standing there.

  ‘Come inside now,’ she said.

  Night fell fast and with the electricity out it became very dark very quickly, but the moon rose silver-white and full. From the light of the full moon we could see the people coming up our hill, seeking the higher ground. There were rumours of another wave, constant rumours, and I believed every one of them, I had no trouble believing in them totally, and every rumour of another wave made my heart fly with raw panic. How could I not believe the rumours? There were people who had lost everything.

  We had taken a few of the pallets of bottled water from the shed, the Botans and ourselves, and we had placed them in our front yard and opened them up, so that the water was ready to hand out as the people came up the hill or down our dirt road to our front door. They were all in need of water. They took the water with a wai and sat down nearby, talking quietly among themselves. They sat just beyond our fence, as if not wanting to impose.

  Without the air con the house was hot and airless so we sat on the veranda, Tess with Rory in her arms on the steps, Keeva and I together on the old rattan chair, slapping at the mosquitoes that settled and fed on us, the insect spray never quite enough to deter them. I could sit still at last, but it was with exhaustion more than anything resembling calm, a mind-numbing exhaustion that left me sick and dizzy.

  I looked out at the bay, watching the point where the sky touched the sea. I wasn’t sure how I would ever sleep on this island again. My hands were shaking.

  ‘It was the shape of our bay,’ said Keeva, looking up at me, her head nodding with tiredness. ‘That saved us from the wave. The special shape.’

  I squeezed her. ‘That’s good,’ I said, and the tears came unbidden at the sight of my daughter’s beautiful face.

  Keeva was right. The perfect semi-circle of Nai Yang bay broke the force of the wave, and stopped it from surging inland and taking everything with it, the way it had in Khao Lak on Phang Nga to the north, or on the Phuket beaches further south, where some of our visitors had come from.

  The Botans were as numb and disbelieving as survivors of a car wreck or a war. They helped hand out water, and they smiled at the children, and Mrs Botan cooked all that she could. But behind the bustle was a real and shredding grief.

  There were people missing from the strip of restaurants on Hat Nai Yang, the neighbours of the Almost World Famous Seafood Grill who had gone into work early. Waiters, cleaners, cooks. Friends, neighbours, women and men they had watched grow up since they were babies. And nobody knew who was missing and who was gone forever.

  ‘Look!’ Keeva said, waking up, and I saw Chatree and Kai walking down the dirt-track road alone.

  Tess went to greet them, the children and the dog bounding alongside her.

  ‘And your father?’ Tess said.

  ‘He was fishing,’ Chatree said, and he looked at his sister. ‘He was out fishing.’

  Kai shook her head. ‘We can’t find him,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll turn up,’ Tess said, and she put her arms around the pair of them, and they stood there, stock-still, letting her hold them.

  ‘Can they stay with us?’ Keeva said.

  ‘Of course they must stay,’ Tess said.

  I gave them each a bottle of water, and the two young chao ley took it without expression as they stared at the ground, wondering what would happen now. Then we all turned to look at a flame of pure fire that had suddenly pierced the darkness.

  Mr Botan had his blowtorch in his hand, and was heating up the garlic and bread that someone had carried with them up the green hill of Nai Yang. Mrs Botan began to light candles as the smell of toasted bread and garlic drifted across the yard and I felt my mouth flood with saliva. I had not eaten since breakfast and the bread and garlic smelled like the finest meal in the world.

  Then there was other food. Thais came shyly to our porch and offered us cold rice wrapped in banana leaves, and pieces of mango and watermelon and pomelo. Tess kept handing out bottles of water, and soon we all realized how hungry we were.

  And when the food was gone, Keeva and Rory took Kai and Chatree by the hand and led them to their bedroom. Then our kids brushed their teeth and staggered off to our big bed while Tess stood in the doorway of the children’s bedroom, smiling to say that everything was all right. But Chatree seemed unsure if they should accept the offer of a bed.

  ‘We should look for our father,’ he said.

  ‘You can look for him in the morning,’ Tess said briskly.

  ‘Jah?’ said the boy. Sister?

  ‘Thank you,’ the girl said to Tess, deciding the matter, and then to the boy, ‘Bang,’ with a small nod of encouragement. Brother.

  But they made no motion to get into bed. Tess smiled at them and closed the door. We stood there for a moment, hearing their soft voices before we walked quickly away, as if we had accidentally overheard somebody praying.

  With Mister in my arms, I kissed my family goodnight – Keeva and Rory either side of Tess, the bed completely full, all three of them more asleep than awake – and went out to sleep on the rattan chair.

&
nbsp; There was work going on in the darkness, as the people who had come to our hill pulled palm leaves from trees and spread them on the ground for their beds. I left the dog settling down on the rattan chair and went out and helped them in their work, surprised that I needed all my strength to pull off the largest leaves, some of them as big as a man.

  In the end we had more leaves than we needed. The people who had come up the hill began to bed down for the night and I felt the surprising softness of the last palm leaf that I had torn from the tree. The feel of it made me weak with tiredness and I placed it on the ground and lay down. Immediately I felt myself ordered to sleep.

  I smelled the garlic and the bread that Mr Botan had cooked with his blowtorch and my eyes started to shut, and I knew that soon the darkness would come, despite the fragile flames of the candles and the white blaze of the moon.

  The first time I awoke in the night I cried out with fear, but Tess was by my side, her body curved into mine, knowing every twist and turn, and in her sleep she placed a light hand on my arm and it calmed me. I turned over to face her, but she turned over too, so I slept with my face in her hair until I woke again, the sky still black, the moon and the candles all gone, and this second time I found that I was alone, and Tess had gone back to the bed with our children, as if she knew that I would not cry out again.

  18

  The traffic started before dawn.

  I got up, leaving the others still sleeping around me on the ground, and walked down to the main road.

  A pick-up truck went by, the back loaded with young farang and their luggage, and then another. The road was full of them, and scooters, and motorbikes, all kinds of motorbikes, everything from little hairdryers to giant Harleys. In the half-light you could see them coming, this ragged convoy of trucks, taxis and even the odd tuk-tuk, crammed with foreigners and their belongings, a river of traffic moving north to the airport.

  I held up my hand and called out for someone to stop, but nobody even looked at me. On their faces there was nothing but that animal need to get away. And it was in me too. The animal need to be somewhere else. A single thought of pure terror.