by Claire Gray
Chapter Fourteen
I get a text from Steve just as I’m parking outside the office, and I go to meet him for a milkshake at our favourite beach café. He says he needs the sugar but I think he just wants to do something normal. I don’t tell him where I’ve been. All I did up there in the hills was upset Maliwan’s mother. I wrap my hands around the icy cold glass and try to think of something to say. There’s nothing, so I suck noisily on my straw.
We sit cross-legged on cushions and watch the sea. I went snorkelling out there last month and made eye contact with a turtle. It’s as if that happened to someone else now, or like I saw it in a film. Steve’s eyes are fixed on the horizon while he tightly folds a paper napkin until it tears.
It’s practically empty in here. I recognise an elderly black lady; she’s an artist and lives in one of the huts over there on the sand. I went to cover one of her shows a few weeks ago, and drank strange, spicy tea out on her decking. I try to catch her eye now but she won’t look my way. A couple of backpackers are sitting together, silently eating pancakes. To the side of the bar, a young Thai woman is gutting a fish. There’s a copy of the Koh Star left open on the table beside ours.
‘I spoke to someone in the mayor’s office,’ Steve tells me.
‘Yeah?’ I kick off my shoes and rub the soles of my feet, which hurt like little bits of glass are embedded in them.
‘They’re holding a meeting tomorrow for people whose businesses have been affected by the bomb. It’s an open meeting; we can go.’
‘The ice cream people might be there,’ I say.
Steve nods. ‘It’s been a long day today, hasn’t it?’
‘And it’s still not over.’
‘It is for me,’ Steve says, pressing on the bridge of his nose.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. Steve’s never ill and never anything less than enthusiastic. He works all the time; he never stops writing or thinking.
‘Yeah. Don’t look at me like that. I’m just exhausted. This has been a lot.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just that I care. Do you need me to do anything?’
‘You should come home too. We could both use a rest.’
‘I kind of don’t want to stop working,’ I say. ‘When I slow down my brain speeds up, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. I was feeling that way too, but now I’ve hit a wall. There are things you can do, but only if you’re sure you really want to.’ He gives me a few options and the one I pick is to go to a scrapyard on the outskirts of town. The owner pulled people out of the wreckage the other night, risking his own life.
‘It might be good to have something positive to say in next week’s paper,’ I say.
‘Make sure you get a photo of him. I’ve spoken to his son on the phone and he said just to turn up; they’ll be happy to talk with you. The son’s English is very good. He speaks it with a sort of Australian accent.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I can do that. Are you going to be all right? You’re sure?’
Steve nods. ‘Just tired.’
I wait for him to smile but he doesn’t. I’ve finished my milkshake. His has lowered by perhaps a centimetre. He does look tired, I suppose. I don’t like seeing him so flat. I push the straw around in my glass and realise that we were here a week ago. We arrived to eat in the early evening and a rain storm came down around us. The candles on the bar flickered in the breeze, and lizards ran in across the ceiling. It was one of those moments when you feel a sort of romance with the world, spoiled only when an Australian man in a wetsuit made eye contact with me, came over and started talking. Steve looked at us with a little smile on his face, like he was trying to encourage me into something. But thinking about it today, I would gladly go back in time. The look on Steve’s face right now is much worse. And I felt uncomfortable with the Australian man because, I suppose, of that other unresolved trauma in my life — the one that brought me to the island — but that trauma, although awful, was at least less outrageous than these new ones. I know too much now to ever lose sleep over something like the way that guy in the wetsuit touched my knee.
‘Shall we go, Steve?’ I say now.
He nods. He leaves his milkshake.
Later, I drive to the edge of town, leaving Steve at home with a black and white movie.
I don’t know what they do at the scrapyard or how they make money on an island this small. It’s not something I’ve ever considered before, despite driving past it many times. It seems abandoned when I pull up beside it now. I peer out at a wooden building, surrounded by vehicles in various states of disrepair. Everything is cluttered and dirty, dull even beneath the sun. I sit in the car for a moment, absorbed with a desire to sleep, to let myself fall away into nothing. But I force myself out and walk towards the building, passing towers of tyres, fridges with their doors hanging open, farming machinery, metal benches, a couple of religious sculptures.
‘What do you want?’ a voice says in English, with an accent half Thai, half Australian. I hear him before I see him, and freeze. I don’t spot him until he moves out of a doorway. He can’t be much older than fifteen and is wearing a baggy pair of shorts, metallic blue. As he comes closer I see that his skin is covered by a fine white dust, like he’s been spray painting.
‘I’m from the Koh Star. The newspaper.’
‘You want my dad? He’s out.’
‘Oh. Do you know how long he’ll be?’
The boy shrugs, and then turns to play with the dials on the front of an old cooker.
‘I heard that he rescued people on Thursday night. It’d be great to talk to him.’
‘He’s with his girlfriend,’ the boy says.
‘I can come back.’
He nods, and pulls one of the dials off. As I start to leave he flicks the dial away and I hear it land somewhere to my left. Glancing over that way, I notice a car parked crookedly in the dust, one of its rear doors hanging open.
‘How long have you had that car?’ I call to the boy, who is about to step back inside the building.
‘What?’
‘That one,’ I point. I go over, stepping around engine parts which are piled on the ground. The car’s blue paintwork is gleaming, freshly washed. An air freshener shaped like ballet shoes hangs from its rear-view mirror, and there is a Free Palestine bumper sticker pasted crookedly beside where I’m standing. I recognise this vehicle.
‘I don’t know,’ the boy says. ‘Yesterday?’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Someone sold it.’
I try opening up the boot. Nothing happens. My toes slip in the dust.
‘What you doing? That’s my car. Don’t touch.’ He’s on his way over here now, moving fast.
‘Who sold it to you?’
‘It’s not stolen.’
‘I can pay you to tell me,’ I say, opening my bag and rummaging inside for my purse. I drop my keys, a pen, a ball of chewed gum wrapped up in a receipt.
‘You don’t need to pay me,’ he says, picking up the pen and handing it to me. ‘I just don’t want to get him in trouble.’
‘You won’t. Who?’
He hesitates for a moment longer, then says: ‘His name’s Mike. We like him. He plays guitar on the beach and always wears a big hat. He’s English, like you. You probably know him.’
I do know who he means. I’ve never actually spoken to Mike but I’ve heard him play. He strums folk songs, mumbling the words beneath the shade of his panama hat. He doesn’t play for money. I’ve seen him throw coins back at people after they’ve dropped them at his feet.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘Is this going to be in the newspaper? We were supposed to talk about the people my dad saved.’
‘We’ll still do that. I’ll come back later.’
‘Okay,’ he says, but I don’t think he believes me.
Chapter Fifteen
I find Steve sitting on the living room floor with a cat, st
roking its wiry fur. Strands of hair are loose all over the rug. Steve takes a while to look up as I close the front door with my elbow and rush over to him. When he does look up, he only half smiles.
‘I think it’s a stray,’ Steve says. ‘It just wandered in.’
I tell him what happened and he nods for a while, staring down at the animal, which is paralysed with either fear or ecstasy.
Steve says: ‘It’s a shame you weren’t able to speak with the owner of the scrapyard.’
‘I still can. But don’t you get it? They have Dolph’s car. Let’s go to the beach and talk to this Mike guy.’
‘I don’t think I do get it.’ Steve looks at me with an empty face, like he doesn’t even care. This is a man who gets so excited by the crime dramas we watch together on DVD, that he has to pause them in order to tell me his theories. He skips to the ends of novels and reads them backwards. He even gets excited writing news stories about stolen snorkelling gear, and that time a chicken was killed on Main Street in what he called a hit and run. Steve gets excited about things, and now here he is, in the middle of something real and terrible, and he’s just staring at me.
‘It could mean that something’s happened to Dolph, or perhaps he dumped the car. There are lots of things it could mean,’ I say.
‘Like, for instance, he’s gone back to the States for completely innocent, understandable reasons, left his car behind, and the crazy man from the beach stole it.’
‘Maybe. But, I think we should go and talk to the crazy man, regardless.’
‘I don’t think so. I’m so tired, Lucy. Look, it’s nearly night.’
‘Well, then I’ll just call the police and tell them,’ I say, gritting my teeth and hoping he can see how I feel about him right now.
‘They’re only interested in finding the bomber at the moment. They don’t think Dolph is the bomber, so...’
‘Then let’s go to the beach ourselves,’ I say, flapping my arms. ‘Why not? Why would we not do that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Steve says, and then the cat bites down on his fingers. I think I hear it pierce the skin.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ he winces, watching as the cat skitters away towards the bathroom. ‘Fine. Come on, then. Let’s do it. It’ll be a waste of time though.’
We go to the beach. There are better, more beautiful beaches elsewhere on the island. This one, walking distance from the centre of town, is a narrow strip of sand lined with frail trees. A stream runs into the sea, where sharp black rocks poke from the water. Crabs and pale fish wash up with the tide. There are usually stalls selling food and drink, and vendors with jewellery and clothes. Not so much today. It’s only two days since the bomb went off; the dust has barely settled and normality is a long way off.
Generally, Mike is somewhere to be found, playing his guitar and rolling his big, yellow eyes. Today we can’t see him. Steve buys us each a coconut with a straw poking out the top, and we walk across the sand, dodging modest waves. The sun is dropping low in the sky and the air has a faint chill to it.
‘He might have been blown up for all we know,’ Steve says.
‘No, he brought the car in to the scrapyard after the bomb went off.’
‘Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry, Lucy. I’m starting to get mixed up. I need to have a proper sleep.’
And then we hear it; someone plucking at a guitar, feverishly fast. But we can’t see him anywhere.
‘It’s just a recording, is it?’ Steve says, but it sounds as real as the waves and the warbling birds. Thinking of the birds, I look up, and there Mike is in the branches of a tree. The tree pokes out from a mess of rocks, dry plants and scraps of litter, all faded from the sun. The branches appear to be dead, like maybe they were struck by lightning years ago. Mike is wearing his usual hat, along with a denim waistcoat and football shorts. Painfully thin, his legs dangle like they don’t work.
‘Hi there,’ Steve calls. Mike doesn’t reply. I feel like he might spit on us; he has that sort of look on his face. We walk closer and I let Steve do the talking.
‘We’re from the Koh Star. Would you mind coming down from the tree? Or we can come up?’
‘You don’t want to talk to me. I’ve got nothing to say that’s quotable.’
He is English, like that boy said. And he doesn’t sound as crazy as I expected him to. He’s quite well spoken, in fact.
I say: ‘We know you took a car to the scrapyard yesterday. We just want to find out where it came from. I think it might be important.’
He’s still playing but his fingers slow a little.
‘It didn’t seem like an important car. Couple of idiots abandoned it.’
‘What did they look like?’ I put a hand against the warm tree, and look up at the soles of his feet.
‘How come the police haven’t been here asking questions, if it’s so important?’
‘They still might,’ Steve says. He looks around, as if the police could be here any second. I’m pleased to have him here with me.
‘Maybe if I talk to you, you could stop that happening?’ Mike says.
Steve shrugs, like perhaps he could. ‘What can you tell us?’
‘Young couple. That’s a man and a woman. She was Thai, he wasn’t. Arguing, or just emotional about something. They walked off and left it. Heading out of town. Anyway, I went over there. Keys still in the ignition. They obviously didn’t want it, did they? I need money all the time so I took it. Not a lot else to tell.’
‘When was this?’ I ask.
‘Couldn’t say exactly. It was definitely yesterday, though. I don’t think I was hungry at the time, so it would have been after I had my chicken. Early evening.’
‘Was there anything inside the car?’
‘There were some socks in the boot. I took those. Nice long white ones. That’s all.’
‘Nothing else you can tell us?’ My neck begins to ache from staring up at him.
‘Actually, yes. The car was muddy. Lots of orange mud all up the sides and where their feet had been on the mats.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘I like to be helpful when I can,’ he says, and looks down at his fingers, picking up the pace again. He’s really good, but the way he plays makes my skin tighten, like there’s a message in the music, some sort of warning. I shake my head and it’s gone.
The sun will be setting soon. We walk away from the beach, past an abandoned building site. This was going to become a shopping mall, but I don’t know if it will now that the bomb has exploded and the population has shrunk. The island could be deserted in a year, reclaimed by the animals.
‘So,’ I say, ‘what do you think?’
‘He’s living life the way he wants to. We shouldn’t pity him or call him mad.’
‘No, I mean about what he said.’
‘Oh,’ Steve says, and rubs his moustache. ‘I think that if he really did see Maliwan, we ought to tell her mother about it. Tell her that she’s alive. Imagine thinking your child is dead. And then imagine finding out that she isn’t.’
‘I think it was her too,’ I say, skipping and nearly grabbing his arm. ‘It was them, wasn’t it? They dumped the car here. That’s what I think.’
‘We have to be sure.’
‘It was them, and they’re running away from something.’
‘It does seem that way.’ He won’t look at me. I try to peer at his face, tripping over my own feet as I do so.
‘We should phone the police,’ I say.
‘I’ll speak to Kadesadayurat.’
We stop to watch as a huge sea bird takes off from the scaffolding of the unfinished mall. I shiver as its shadow passes over us.
‘Maybe we’ll find them ourselves,’ I say, and look to Steve for a response but he’s watching the bird, and even after it’s out of sight his eyes remain distant. I have to pull lightly on his sleeve for him to follow me home.
Chapter Sixteen
The meeting the next day, for businesse
s affected by the bomb, turns out not to be a meeting at all.
‘Something must have been lost in translation,’ Steve mutters. It happens to us a lot.
We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes behind the town hall, where the mayor’s office is sandwiched between a tourist information centre and a chemist. There’s no one else here; just some birds singing and fighting on the roof of the building. Everything is locked up.
‘Let’s just go,’ I say and then add, to cheer him up: ‘Isn’t it a nice day? We should go out for a second breakfast somewhere by the sea.’
‘I don’t know if I can eat. And this light is hurting my eyes. It’ll be worse by the water. It’ll reflect right into our faces. Have you seen my sunglasses anywhere? I feel like I’ve not had them for days.’
‘No,’ I say, briefly floored because I’ve never known him to be so negative or to turn down food.
We’re just beginning to walk away when the owners of the Green Turtle Hostel appear from the direction of the car park. I first recognise them by their silhouettes, because that’s how they used to appear to me when I crossed the dark reception area of the hostel and they would be working in the harsh lights of the laundry room or kitchen.
‘Oh!’ I cry, waving a hand. ‘Hello!’
They grunt at me as they pass by, unsmiling, the way they always used to when we met in the hostel corridors.
‘They’re the owners of the Green Turtle,’ I say to Steve. ‘I’ve been wondering about them.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ Steve says. He smiles at the couple, who are probably aged in their seventies and are plump and bespectacled. He says something to them in Thai but they ignore him and continue to the doorway of the mayor’s office.
‘It’s closed,’ I call to them. But they stoop to pick a piece of paper up from a pile weighted down by a rock, half hidden behind a shelf of maps and scuba leaflets on the doorstep. They read through it, shake their heads and grumble, and then walk back the way they came, giving me the smallest of nods as they go by.