The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

Same-Same, But Different

As I got into bed, the first into the longhouse that night, I heard the sound of Bugs and Keaty returning with the Tet supplies. There was a lot of excited chatter when people saw what had been brought for the celebration, and later I heard Keaty calling my name. Later still, Françoise joined him. I didn’t answer either of them. I was lying on my back with a T–shirt draped over my head, waiting for sleep. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to wait too long.

The clearing had always been a clearing. It had almost doubled in size as the camp had grown, but had existed in some form since the rocket-ship trees were saplings. Two hundred years ago? Maybe more. The only way I know how to date a tree is to cut it down, but it wasn’t hard to imagine those rocket-ship trees having seen a few centuries through.

‘A Herculean task,’ said Mister Duck thoughtfully. He was standing in the spot where the longhouse now stood, thigh-deep in ferns. ‘Diverting the stream. We only attempted it in the second year, when there were fourteen of us living here. Couldn’t have done it without Jean, of course. Not just the know-how. He worked like an ox…kept us going…I wish you could have been with us, Rich. I wish you could have been with us from the very beginning. Me, Sal and Bugs…The mood, you can’t imagine…’

I pushed carefully through the shrubs, pacing out the distance from the longhouse door to where I estimated my bed must be. It was curious to be in the position where I knew, at that moment, I was also sleeping. ‘I can imagine the mood,’ I said, stepping sideways, disconcerted by the idea that I was standing on my head. ‘I can imagine it easily.’

Mister Duck waggled a finger at me. ‘If I didn’t know you better, Rich, I’d take offence at that. There’s no way you can imagine the way we felt. Apart from anything, you’re too young. On and off, I’d been travelling with Sal and Bugs for over eleven years. Eleven years, Rich! How can you imagine what it’s like, living with cancer for eleven years?’

‘…Cancer?’

‘Sure, cancer. Or AIDS. What do you want to call it?’

‘Call what?’

‘Living with death. Time-limits on everything you enjoy. Sitting on a beautiful beach, waiting for a fucking time-limit to come up. Affecting the way you look at the sand and the sunsets and the way you taste the rice. Then moving on and waiting for it to happen all over again. For eleven years!’ Mister Duck shivered. ‘…Then to have that cancer lifted. To think you’ve found a cure…That’s what you can’t imagine, Rich.’

♦

The waterfall and its pool, at least, were exactly the same. A few shrubs different, I suppose, and doubtless a few invisible branches had broken in the trees, but not enough differences to warrant a double take.

One major difference perhaps, but one that would have taken me a while to notice. The carved tree hadn’t been carved, and as soon as we arrived by the pool, Mister Duck produced a pocket knife and set about cutting in the names.

I watched him for a while, interested by the concentration on his usually restless face. Then, as he began to write the zero calendar, I asked, ‘Why me?’

He smiled. ‘I liked the way you talked when I threw the joint at you. You were so indignant and funny…But mainly, I chose you because you were a traveller. Any traveller would have done the job. Spreading the news is in our nature.’

‘Our?’

‘I’m no better than you. I’m just the same.’

‘Maybe worse…’

Mister Duck completed the last zero with a twist of his wrist, and an oval of bark dropped cleanly on to his lap. ‘Hey,’ he said happily. ‘I’d forgotten I did that. How amazing.’

‘Maybe worse,’ I repeated. ‘If I had a part in destroying the beach, I did it unwittingly. You did it on purpose.’

‘Who says I destroyed this place? Not me, pal. Not from where I’m standing.’ He glanced at his crossed legs. ‘Sitting.’

‘Who was it then?’

Mister Duck shrugged. ‘No one. Stop looking for some big crime, Rich. You have to see, with these places, with all these places, you can’t protect them. We thought you could, but we were wrong. I realized it when Jed arrived. The word was out, somehow out, and after that it was just a matter of time…Not that I acted on it at first. I waited, hoping he was a one-off, I guess. But then the Swedes arrived and I knew for sure. Cancer back, no cure, malignant as fuck…’ He stood up, dusted the earth off his legs, and flicked his bark zero into the waterfall pool. ‘Terminal.’

I punched him as hard as I could, square on his solar plexus. Then, when he doubled up, I pushed him on the floor and kicked him in the face.

He took it all without any attempt to fight back. He let me lay into him until my knuckles were cut and my ankle was twisted. Then, when I’d run out of breath and had collapsed on the grass beside him, he uncurled, pulled himself up, and started to laugh.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ I panted. ‘Shut your fucking mouth!’

‘Gripes,’ he chuckled, spitting out a broken tooth. ‘What’s got into you?’

‘You tricked me!’

‘How? What did I ever offer you? What did I ever say I’d provide?’

‘You…’

‘I never offered you anything but Vietnam, and only because you asked for it. It so happens you wanted the beach too. But if you could have had Vietnam and kept the beach, it wouldn’t have been Vietnam.’

‘I didn’t know that! You never told me!’

‘Exactly.’ Mister Duck beamed. ‘That was the beauty of it. You not knowing was Vietnam too. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing when to give up, stuck in a struggle that was lost before it started. It’s incredible really. It all works out.’

‘But I didn’t want that Vietnam!’ I began. ‘I didn’t want that kind! I wan…’ Then I stopped. ‘All?…Wait, you’re saying it all works out?’

‘All. Right to the bitter end.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘You know, Rich, I always thought euthanasia was a kindness. But I never dreamed it could be so much fun.’