by Rosie Blake
I needed a good link in, a line that would make it natural that I begin a sing-along. I racked my brains.
Duncan was still looking at me so I needed to think quicker.
‘Do you remember…that …thing…that…?’
I was flailing now. They were all watching me. I readjusted my hat to buy some time.
‘Do you remember…? Or, no, no, wait…’ I got excited. Everybody loved the Backstreet Boys! Andrew had loved them when he was younger. I’ll go for one of theirs. ‘I think…we should get up,’ I said slowly. ‘Everyone get up, sing it.’ I nodded my head twice to an imaginary beat. ‘Everybody get up.’
Three faces looked at me. Liz had arched one of her eyebrows.
I persisted. ‘Come on, everyone, get up, sing it, 1, 2, 3, 4.’
Shit, wait, this was so not a song from the Backstreet Boys, I was singing 5ive. Oh god, I’m not sure anyone liked 5ive. Maybe I could brazen it out.
‘Are you singing 5ive?’ asked Duncan.
‘What? No, I’m…I was…’
‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5ive will make you get down, yeah,’ Duncan started singing.
Oh my god, this was it, it was a sing-along, a spontaneous sing-along. This was totally happening.
‘Bring it, bring it on, bring it on, bring it…on.’ I realised halfway through the sentence that I perhaps was not as down with these lyrics as I had initially thought. Duncan was smiling and I looked at Andrew in his big pink hat to see if he was joining in, too. He wasn’t, but that was probably because we hadn’t yet got to the chorus.
‘Everybody get up, sing it, 5, 6, 7, 8.’ I smiled encouragingly at Duncan for him to join me again, but we clashed over the next sentence.
‘5ive will make you get down, yeah.’
‘Bring it, bring it on, bring it on, bring it.’ I had definitely brought it a lot. If it needed to have been brought, I had brought it. I could not think of another line and started to mumble various numbers interspersed with the word ‘everybody’ in the hope that Duncan might have a finer grasp of 5ive’s backlist. He did not and petered out, offering to go and get more beers. I nodded, concerned that the evening was not going Party Girl’s way.
Liz and Andrew were now quietly talking and they were holding up their hands, seeing who had the biggest hand or something. It was a weird little game that gave me a feeling like a stone was sitting in the middle of my stomach. How could I turn this around?
Duncan returned, snaking round various chairs to get back, clutching four bottles of beer in one hand and I did a ‘Whoop, whoop!’ and started calling ‘strawpedoe’, reckoning that I needed to oil the wheels somewhat and get everyone more in the mood.
‘I’ll fetch the straws,’ I sang, leaping from my chair and practically knocking my cowboy hat off in my enthusiasm.
‘There’s really no need…’ Liz called from the table.
I rolled my eyes like any Party Girl would and headed to the bar, seizing a handful of straws and giving a massive grin to the barman.
It was a few hours later and the straws had gone down a treat; we’d been joined by the gap year henna group who were Canadian and were now teaching us their national anthem. At the moment I had definitely got the first line nailed and then turned to trusty mumbling for the rest. I’d lost my hat, but no matter. Andrew seemed to be the happiest I’d seen him in a while (well since I’d almost burned his house down) and I really thought he was seeing a new side to me tonight.
Still, there was nothing like an impromptu boat race to really double-check and I herded everyone into two lines, wondering why people kept putting tables and chairs in my way when I wanted to walk places.
‘Hip bruise.’ I lifted my top to show Andrew.
He hiccoughed.
Throwing an arm over my shoulders, I was blasted by the warm, beery breath of Duncan who was now wearing his cap backwards and appeared to have lost his shirt.
‘’ello.’
‘Shirt.’ I pointed because I was really in a say-what-I-see mood.
He jiggled his pectoral muscles at me, which was both fascinating and a bit creepy.
Sitting on the floor of the bar in two lines, the Canadian students and a couple of German guys who’d swelled our numbers, we downed drinks in a race to win. There was back-slapping and laughter and dancing and sand and laughter and more songs and I also made best friends with someone in Canada. And there was Andrew, in the midst of it all; he was there. I found him in the darkest corners. I raised toasts to him and I admired his hat. I felt awash with good feelings and was so pleased I had travelled this far. I had really done it: I was trying to reach for the life I had always wanted. And hello, CV: I rock at boat races.
Hic.
Dear diary,
I miss Andrew so much. I haven’t seen him at all since term ended and Mum says his mum has moved away so they can be nearer Andrew’s dad. School is not the same and when I go to all the places we played it is not as fun any more. When we went on the trees he would always make me climb higher and I was so proud when I looked down. When we went to the pier we would sit and listen to my Walkman and Andrew made me a tape with brilliant songs on it so that we could listen to that. It isn’t as fun now and the songs make me miss him more. I feel so sad now that he went away before we could be friends again, it was only a silly argument and Jenny said he always told her how much he missed me too.
I x
Chapter 30
The hammock is the world’s greatest ever invention. Paracetamol, you might cry, the steam engine, others would say. They would be wrong. The hammock is the world’s greatest-ever invention.
I was suspended, encased in netting, drifting off to sleep shaded by the branches of the trees above me. If I reached out my left arm I could pick up my water bottle, raise it to my lips and drink from its watery goodness. A light breeze washed over me like a whisper on the air and for a few seconds I didn’t want to throw up the contents of my stomach any more.
Five minutes ago, I had opened one of my eyes, the eyelashes sticking with last night’s mascara, to see Duncan crawling across the sand for an early morning swim. I wasn’t sure he made it. Andrew was yet to appear and I allowed myself a momentary sigh as I pieced together the night before. I kept my eyes shut this time, realising I wasn’t ready for that movement again.
These are my memories: drinking beer through straws, something about Canada, something about boats or hats, Liz is a douche.
There had been a moment with Andrew, definitely a moment. We’d been sitting on the floor, cross-legged, waiting for our turn in a boat race that was fast turning into farce because no one had full drinks, the comforting presence of Andrew behind me, warm when I leaned back to talk to him. I remember his touch on my arm, his hair tickling my face as he said something over the din to me. I remember feeling my stomach plummet as I looked over my shoulder at him. Then there had been something else, at the end of the night…All this thinking was hurting my head. I had to dredge it up; it felt like the important piece of a puzzle. The one in the jigsaw that you need to make that sucker work.
To my right I heard a rustle and then the snap of a camera. I called, ‘Andrew, is that you?’ I admired my new throaty Radio 1 DJ voice. There was silence and I realised I was forced to open up another eye.
‘How are you feeling?’ I croaked, shielding my eyes with one hand and looking over in the direction of the noise.
Zeb had one knee planted in the sand, one foot behind him, his face obscured by the camera. It went off again.
Sitting up, the hammock rocking dangerously as I turned to him, I felt a surge of sickness which put off the moment at which I was planning to shout at him.
‘Good morning, princess, you look very relaxed.’
Groaning, I lay back down. ‘I was, oh harbinger of doom.’
He scooted next to me to sit in the sand, his bare legs in cut-of
f denim shorts, a strip of white flesh across both feet that looked like he was still wearing flip-flops. ‘Dying?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘Bleurgh.’
‘So dying.’
‘Gahhhhh.’
‘I was wondering if you wanted to walk round to something.’
‘What kind of something?’ I whispered, taking another sip from my water bottle.
‘It’s a surprise.’
‘I can’t deal with surprises today.’
‘Can you deal with anything today?’
‘Ha ha.’ I trained an eye on him, he looked so horribly perky, his blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. I hadn’t noticed the navy flecks in them before.
‘Okay, fine, you win. It’s a cave.’
‘Cave?’
‘It’s brilliant, will you come?’
‘My mother always told me not to go to dark caves with strange men.’
‘Very sensible woman.’
He started whistling ‘Club Tropicana’.
‘No,’ I said, pointing a finger to my lips.
The whistling stopped.
‘I’ll buy you an ice cream…’
I shifted in my hammock. It rocked left and right.
‘I’ll buy you Ibuprofen.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Oh god. Okay, okay, I’m coming.’
‘Good.’
Holding my head, I sat up again. I gingerly twisted and placed my feet on the soft sand below. I took Zeb’s hand and wobbled upright, one hand automatically on my stomach.
‘Where’s the ice cream?’ I whispered.
‘Right this way, your majesty.’ And he bent on one knee again, a palm outstretched, his head bowed.
‘Very good.’ I sniffed, walking past him, my nose in the air.
Walking up a winding path, loose pebbles forming a slippery layer over the dry earth, I wondered why I had agreed to come. Zeb was a few metres ahead, his white cotton shirt billowing behind him, his dark hair curling a little at the back. The heels of his feet were dusty and this thought made my stomach grumble again. I swigged at my water calling, ‘How much further?’ in as hopeful a voice as I could muster.
Zeb looked back over his shoulder at me, his white teeth flashing in his brown face. ‘Not much further and it’s downhill most of the way from here on.’
I nodded and kept my eyes on the ground, one foot in front of the other, feeling my calves burn like I was in a step class in a sauna. In a hot country. Like Hell. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my hairline and swiped the back of my hand to get rid of them. This cave better be made of diamonds. Or ice.
The path narrowed even further and I dodged round brambles protruding from the edge; there were marks in the sand that looked worryingly snake-like and little holes that disappeared into snake tunnels. These thoughts helped me quicken my pace and I was soon practically treading on Zeb’s heels as we rounded a corner.
To the right, deep-green clouds of trees climbed above us, disappearing into a thin layer of mist at the top. Ahead of us, the path led down, twisting, disappearing and returning again. To our left, the turquoise-blue ocean shimmered in the heat and I imagined sinking beneath the water and feeling refreshed. I licked my lips feeling sand granules fill my mouth as if the air was filled with dust. The sun blazed on to my bare shoulders and the backs of my legs.
Winding our way further down the path, I could hear the occasional rustle of an animal in the bushes alongside us and, as the ground levelled out, the trees seemed bent over by the heat, their branches creating dark-brown shadows on the path.
‘This is it,’ said Zeb, pointing to the left where a rough track could just be made out, broken bracken trodden into the ground, twigs forming a channel through the undergrowth.
My nose wrinkled as he started down it, a large rustle to my left making me squeak and race after him. Great, I thought, a path to who knows where. How was I fooling myself that I was some intrepid explorer? Shouldn’t I have a compass, a map or a backpack with supplies? How long would we be walking through the jungle for? Would I ever return to my friends? I pictured the hammock back at Juara beach, an iced tea perspiring slightly on a small table beside it, next to a book I had been reading.
Stumbling into the sunlight, I felt sand flick the back of my calves and realised I was on a thin stretch of beach, totally isolated and in its own bay. The water lapped gently, brown leaves turning over in the surf as it rolled in. Zeb had waded out, the bottom of his shorts dark blue from the water and was clambering over a cluster of rocks to the right, his camera bag slung over his shoulder, a towel round his neck like a scarf. He turned back to me. ‘This is it,’ he repeated, his smile so wide I couldn’t help grin back.
Taking off my shoes, I walked down to meet him, gasping in delight as I moved over to the rocks. Placing a hand on the warm stone, I hauled myself up and stayed crouched pretty low to grope my way around. As I turned the corner, the sun disappeared, the air cooled and the noise of the water seemed heightened; slapping on to rocks and washing into shore.
The rocks flattened out and Zeb was standing on a shelf gazing into the cave. Inside, where the light couldn’t reach, there was a strip of sand and then a border of rocks in which a deep-green circle of seawater formed a pool. The stone walls curved up and over our heads streaked in greys and disappearing into shadow at the back. In the ceiling there was a jagged hole in the rock and the sun had forced its way through slicing the air and showing up dancing particles and creating a circle of the brightest green on the water of the pool below. It was beautiful.
Zeb had removed his camera and was taking shots at different angles as I hopped down on to the wet sand. Feeling it squelch in between my toes and around my ankles, I laughed open-mouthed, hangover entirely forgotten, desperate to just take everything in.
Getting into the pool had been a shock and a relief, the stones underneath smoothed away over time. Propping myself up on my elbows, I looked out of the cave at the ocean. The blue of the sea seemed all the brighter, framed as it was in the dark, rough walls of the cave and I paddled my feet behind me and gazed at it, feeling my whole body unwind and relax. I had stumbled into paradise and my life in LA, the hut, the hangover, the guilt and the stress all melted away as I listened to the roll of the waves and felt the breeze on my face.
Zeb swum into the circle and was now framed in his own spotlight. His skin looked mahogany brown in the darkness of the cave and I gulped a little as he stood up, droplets clinging to his dark chest hair, a line running from his bellybutton to beneath the water. I found myself staring, remembering seeing him under the waterfall all those days ago and then felt heat in my cheeks as I looked away.
‘I thought I would cover up this time,’ he said, waggling an eyebrow at me. Did his bark of laughter seem a fraction forced, too?
I splashed him lightly and turned back around. ‘Lucky me.’ I laughed, swallowing the words, surprised by the higher pitch in my voice, my head starting to swim a bit, a woozy dream-like feeling wafting over me.
We stayed there mostly in silence, sitting and watching the odd passing bird or boat dip in and out of view, watching clouds skitter across our path, momentarily plunging the whole cave into darkness, the pool a glinting black shadow for a second.
‘This is incredible,’ I said, sitting on the side of the pool, now, my calves lost to the greenish water.
‘We should film a clip here for the blog,’ Zeb said, looking at me with a question on his lips.
‘Blog?’ I furrowed my brows.
‘It’s where I’ve been uploading all the photos. It’s a travel blog I set up a year or so ago. I let it fester a bit but it’s now fully back up and running, but it could do with some other content.’
‘What were you thinking?’ I asked, feeling an old feeling, a buzz of excitement at the thought of a project.
‘Well, I
think people would want to know places like this exist; you could talk to camera about it. You look sort of perfect there.’ He paused to cough and, for a brief second, I thought he might be nervous, but then he continued, his voice the same, assured. ‘Talk about what we’ve felt, how it seems, no more than two minutes. Can you?’
I felt warmth in my cheeks at the question. I knew I could really but I wanted to get it right, to talk about the intimate feeling of the place, the pool.
‘Let me have a think and then I’ll be ready.’ I smiled, feeling my stomach hum with excitement. I missed presenting to camera, trying to communicate to people in this way.
‘I’ll set up,’ Zeb said, hauling his camera bag over and rummaging through it. He removed a mini tripod and went about finding a place to set it up, lowering his eye to the viewfinder and framing me.
I had thought of the things I could say and was feeling ready, flicking my hair back and licking my lips. Nerves fired through me, mini and exhilarating, and we had a go testing the sound and making sure I knew what I was going to say.
It took a couple of times – I felt rusty, my tongue too big for my mouth – and Zeb handed me a bottle of water. On the third attempt I felt myself loosening up properly, jumbled thoughts straightened out and I was able to speak to camera. Zeb looked at me at the end of the take and gave me a big thumbs-up as he turned the camera off.
‘Fantastic.’
I lowered myself back in the water, biting my lip, pleased it had gone well. I stayed in the pool for a while, not really wanting to leave the sanctuary of this place. The heavy silence, the echoey sounds of our voices, conspiratorial laughter all a comfort.
Zeb offered me a hand as we left and I took it, allowing myself to be pulled back up and out, leaving the darkness and the mystery of the cave behind me.
Walking back, we barely spoke, swapping brief smiles. I felt as if my body had unfurled, everything was calmer and my movements were fluid and unhurried. The day had moved in a leisurely meander and as I looked across at Zeb, I wanted to reach across the gap between us and hold his hand, tell him how amazing it had all been.